estion to which he
dare not answer yes, but to which he might not answer no, and did not; and
she realized that he knew the truth, and she was the better for his
knowing, though her secret was no longer a secret. She was not aware that
Finden also knew. Then Varley came, bringing a new joy and interest in her
life, and a new suffering also, for she realized that if she were free,
and Varley asked her to marry him, she would consent.

But when he did ask her, she said no with a pang that cut her heart in
two. He had stayed his four months, and it was now six months, and he
was going at last--to-morrow. He had stayed to give her time to learn to
say yes, and to take her back with him to London; and she knew that he
would speak again to-day, and that she must say no again; but she had
kept him from saying the words till now. And the man who had ruined
her life and had poisoned her true spirit was come back broken and
battered. He was hanging between life and death; and now--for he was
going to-morrow--Varley would speak again.

The half-hour she had just spent in the hospital with Meydon had tried her
cruelly. She had left the building in a vortex of conflicting emotions,
with the call of duty and of honor ringing through a thousand other voices
of temptation and desire, the inner pleadings for a little happiness while
yet she was young. After she married Meydon, there had only been a few
short weeks of joy before her black disillusion came, and she had realized
how bitter must be her martyrdom.

When she left the hospital, she seemed moving in a dream, as one
intoxicated by some elixir might move unheeding among event and accident
and vexing life and roaring multitudes. And all the while the river
flowing through the endless prairies, high-banked, ennobled by living
woods, lipped with green, kept surging in her ears, inviting her, alluring
her--alluring her with a force too deep and powerful for weak human nature
to bear for long. It would ease her pain, it said; it would still the
tumult and the storm; it would solve her problem, it would give her peace.
But as she moved along the river-bank among the trees, she met the little
niece of the priest, who lived in his house, singing, as though she was
born but to sing, a song which Finden had written and Father Bourassa had
set to music. Did not the distant West know Father Bourassa's gift, and
did not Protestants attend Mass to hear him play the organ afterward? The
fresh