stand it any more. I
ran away. And soon I heard that he had taken up with an Italian girl.
There was a large camp of Italians on the C.P.R., quite close to us. She
was the daughter of one of the foremen. So then my brother made me go to
his lawyers in Winnipeg. We collected evidence very easily. I got my
divorce eighteen months ago. The decree was made absolute last February.
So, of course, I'm quite free--quite--_quite_ free!"

She spoke the last words almost savagely, and after them she moved away
to the window looking on the down, and stood gazing through it, as though
she had forgotten Ellesborough's presence.

"The action was not defended?" he asked, in a low voice.

She shook her head without speaking. But after a minute she added,--

"I can show you the report."

There was silence. Ellesborough turned round, put his hands on the
mantelpiece, and buried his face on them. Presently she approached him,
looked at him with a quivering lip, and said in broken sentences,--

"It has all come so suddenly--hasn't it? I had been in such good
spirits to-day, not thinking of those horrible things at all. I don't
know what I meant to do, if you did ask me--for of course I knew you
_might_. I suppose I intended to put off telling you--so as to be sure
first--_certain_--that you loved me. And then--somehow--when you looked
down on me like that, I felt--that _I_ cared--much more than I had
thought I cared--too much to let you speak--before you knew--before I'd
told you. It's always been my way--to--put off disagreeable things. And
so I thought I could put this off. But every night I have been awake
thinking--'if only he knew!'--and I was wretched--for a while--because
you didn't know. But then it went away again--and I forgot it. One does
forget things--everything--when one is hard at work. But I'm awfully
sorry. And now--I think--we'd better say good-bye."

Her voice faltered against her will. He raised himself quickly.

"No--no," he said passionately, "we won't say good-bye. But you must let
me think--for you, as well as for myself."

"It would be better to say good-bye," she persisted. "I'm afraid--you
expect in me--what I haven't got. I see that now. Because I'm keen about
this work, and I can run this farm, you think--perhaps--I'm a strong
character. But I'm not. I've no judgment--not in moral things. I give
in--I'm weak--and then--I could kill myself!"

She had grown very white again--and her eyes were strangely