nty mans in dis coontree want wife to 'elp an'
mak' good 'ome. It one h'awful big lan'."

Yes, there was any amount of room in this great country. And the woman
wanted her to go and find a good husband! Well, she had come far to
seek one. It--it had not been a pleasant experience. She saw herself
wandering about this wilderness looking for another man who would take
her to wife. Oh, the shame of it--the hot flashing of her cheeks when
she thought of it! No, she was now looking on all this as a pauper
looks into the shop-front displaying the warm clothing that would keep
the bitter cold from him, or as starvelings of big cities, through the
windows of great restaurants and hostelries, stare upon the well-fed
people sating themselves with an abundance of good cheer. She must
remain outside and now the end of it all was near.

They had their breakfast, during which Mrs. Papineau said that she was
becoming anxious about Hugo. Presently she would send one of the
children again. Papineau wouldn't do because he knew nothing about
sick people. She would go over there herself soon. If he was sick she
would bring him a loaf of bread. It would soon be ready to bake; the
dough was still rising behind the stove. There might be other things
to be attended to. Not more than an hour would elapse before she was
ready to go. She remarked that men were a very helpless lot whenever
they were ill, and became grumpy and took feminine tact to manage.

The feeling of anxiety that had gradually come over the girl became
deeper. If the man was ill, it was her fault. What had possessed her
to spend some of her scant store of money in that dirty little shop
for a pistol? Of course, she realized that a vague feeling of danger
had guided her--that the thing could be a means of defense or offer a
way to end her troubles. And it had only served to injure a man who,
if he had sinned against her, manifested at any rate some desire to
treat her kindly.

But the thought that he might not be guilty returned to her,
insistently. It was on her part a change of thought that was not due
to carefully reasoned considerations, to any deep study of conditions,
for when she tried to argue the matter out she became involved in a
thousand contradictions and her head would begin to ache in dizzy
fashion. Rather it was some sort of instinct, one of the conclusions
so often and quickly reached by the feminine mind and apt, in spite of
everything, to prove accurate a