wished to know,
but did not succeed. So he asked:

"Have you had your mail lately?"

"Not for three days. The mail-man made one trip and then the next snow
closed the road again to Kennard."

Lee went off to stable Dick. On his return he found Louise at the door
still waiting, and she helped him to remove his overcoat and scarf
when they passed in to the fire. Then they pushed a divan forward and
she bade him spread out his hands before the blaze.

"It wasn't so long ago that we agreed we mustn't see each other again,
and here we are together," he stated, with a pretense of solemnity. He
extended his hands to the heat and moved his fingers about to expel
their numbness. "I don't know what your father would say if he knew
all the circumstances."

"I--I don't know, either," Louise stammered, in dismay at the thought.

"How's Imogene?" he inquired.

"Improving slowly. All she needed was to get away from that horrid
cabin and horrid--well, surroundings."

"And your father's here?"

"At one of the feed corrals, I think. He had all the cattle rounded up
before the blizzard and held here and fed. A big task, with several
thousand head."

"Then we're safe," said Lee.

Louise looked at him doubtfully. She knew not what to make of this
talk and his portentous air, and felt a new apprehension rising in her
mind.

"What is it? What has happened now, Lee?" she whispered.

But all at once he began to laugh. He caught her hand and holding it
gazed, smiling, into her eyes. Then he drew from his pocket an
envelope, which (still keeping prisoner the hand he had captured) he
waved to and fro before her eyes.

"If I didn't know you well, I'd think you had lost your wits," she
cried.

"I have--wits and heart both. With joy! Wait, I'll take the letter out
so that you can read it. The only blessed thing I ever knew her to do!
I bless her for it, at any rate." He pulled the letter and the
clipping from their cover and laid them in Louise's hand. "Read, read
the tidings!"

The girl's fingers began to tremble as her eyes flitted along the
lines. But she read no more than the first part of the letter. She
turned to him with her eyes misty, her face radiant.

"I could weep for happiness--but I'm not going to." She made a little
dab with her handkerchief at her lashes. "Oh, Lee, to think you're
free! And that now we may love each other!"

"I thought we did."

"Of course we did--but you know what I mean."

"You didn't r