esterday of an old sickness she had long greatly
suffered from. She was my only child--all that was left me; and I'm going
back to England a very lonely man. I'll ask you in a post or two to meet
me."

"I am very sorry, and yet it may have been a release," said Aline. "Hers
was a very hard lot to bear, but she was always cheerful. Poor Uncle
Martin! Of course you will go to meet him."

I did so later when, as a special favor, a mounted man brought me a
telegram from Elktail, and Martin Lorimer gripped my fingers hard when I
boarded the east-bound train at that station.

"I knew thee would come, Ralph, and I was longing for a face that I knew,"
he said. "Ay, to the last my poor girl remembered thee. I'm going home to
England--stayed here too long; and Canada seems empty without her. Only
time to catch the liner, or I'd have come to Fairmead, and I've much to
tell thee on the road to Winnipeg."

He looked sadly shaken, but glad to meet any kinsman in his trouble, and,
asking few questions, I listened quietly while, ensconced in a corner of a
first-class car, he relieved his soul with talk. He told me much that
surprised me, but which is not connected with this story, until I started
when he said: "Now I may tell thee that it was Alice sent that money. She
did it main cleverly,--her own savings, poor girl; I'm glad I never
stinted her in the matter of money. 'You can tell him when I'm gone,
father; it pleased me well to know I had helped to make him happy,' she
said. Then again, almost at the end, she whispered: 'Tell Ralph I wish him
a long life, and the best this world can give him and Miss Carrington.'"

Martin Lorimer coughed vigorously before he continued: "I never heard a
word about that loan until I guessed from thy tale at the chalet that my
girl, never suspecting it, had countered my plans. Well, well, it was all
as it had to be; but if she had never helped thee maybe another Lorimer
would be waiting instead of a stranger to carry on the Orb Mill when I've
done with it."

We were nearing the Red River, and the roofs of Winnipeg lifted themselves
higher above the prairie, when he said, for Martin Lorimer, almost
timidly, "Remembering our talk at the chalet, canst change thy mind, lad,
or is it too late?"

"It is too late, Uncle Martin," I answered with reluctance, for I longed
to do something to comfort him. "As I told you, even if I were ready there
are others to consider now."

He sighed before he answer