r to the north pole or
any place on earth with him, if he wanted her. But by some peculiar
feminine reasoning she reflected in the same instant that if Bill were
away from her in a few weeks he would be all the more glad to get back.
That closed her mouth. She felt too secure in his affection to believe
it could be otherwise. And then she would cheerfully capitulate and go
back with him to his beloved North, to the Klappan or the ranch or
wherever he chose. It was not wise to be too meek or obedient where a
husband was concerned. That was another mite of wisdom she had
garnered from the wives of her circle.

So she kissed Bill good-by at the station next day with perfect good
humor and no parting emotion of any particular keenness. And if he
were a trifle sober he showed no sign of resentment, nor uttered any
futile wishes that she could accompany him.

"So long," he said from the car steps. "I'll keep in touch--all I can."

Then he was gone.

Somehow, his absence made less difference than Hazel had anticipated.
She had secretly expected to be very lonely at first. And she was not.
She began to realize that, unconsciously, they had of late so arranged
their manner of life that separation was a question of degree rather
than kind. It seemed that she could never quite forego the impression
that Bill was near at hand. She always thought of him as downtown or
in the living-room, with his feet up on the mantel and a cigar in his
mouth. Even when in her hand she held a telegram dated at a point five
hundred or a thousand miles or double that distance away she did not
experience the feeling of complete bodily absence. She always felt as
if he were near. Only at night, when there was no long arm to pillow
her head, no good-night kiss as she dozed into slumber, she missed him,
realized that he was far away. Even when the days marched past,
mustering themselves in weekly and monthly platoons and Bill still
remained in the Klappan, she experienced no dreary leadenness of soul.
Her time passed pleasantly enough.

Early in June came a brief wire from Station Six. Three weeks later
the Free Gold Mining Company set up a mild ripple of excitement along
Broad Street by exhibiting in their office window a forty-pound heap of
coarse gold; raw, yellow gold, just as it had come from the sluice.
Every day knots of men stood gazing at the treasure. The Granville
papers devoted sundry columns to this remarkably successful