on where, free of
the necessity of struggling for a bare existence, she might hope to
consummate the fruition of at least a part of her dreams. On her
part....

"_Witnesseth: The said Eleanor Owen is at liberty to follow her own
inclinations as she may see fit; she is to remain free of any and all
responsibilities and restrictions such as customarily attach to the
supervision of a household, excepting as she may elect to exercise her
wifely prerogatives; being absolutely free to pursue whatsoever
occupation or devices she may desire or choose, the same as if she
were yet a spinster...._

"_In Consideration of Which: The said Eleanor Owen agrees never so to
comport herself that by word or conduct will she bring ridicule....
dishonor upon the name...._"

Recollection of it all came to her with a rush; but the words ran
together and swam in a maddening blur--the roar from the street below,
dull with distance; the hum of the big building, with its faint
concussions of closing doors; the air from the open window, not like
the sweet prairie air of to-day, but heavy, smoky, typical breath of
the town, yet pregnant with the indescribable throb of spring,
impossible to efface or to disguise! The compelling intimacy and
irrevocability of that memory overwhelmed her, now; a dark, evil flood
that blotted out the sunshine of the present.

The paper rustled, as the man smoothed it flat with his hand.

"Shall I read?" he asked.

The woman's face stood clear--cruelly clear--in the sunlight; about
her mouth and eyes there was an expression which, from repetition, we
have learned to associate with the circle surrounding a new-made
grave: an expression hopelessly desperate, desperately hopeless.

Of a sudden her chin trembled and her face dropped into her hands.

"Read, if you wish"; and the smooth brown head, with its thread of
gray, trembled uncontrollably.

"Eleanor!" with a sudden vibration of tenderness in his voice.
"Eleanor," he repeated.

But the woman made no response.

The man had taken a step forward; now he sat down again, looking
through the open doorway at the stretch of green prairie, with the
road, a narrow ribbon of brown, dividing it fair in the middle. In the
distance a farmer's wagon was rumbling toward town, a trail of fine
dust, like smoke, suspended in the air behind. It rattled past, and
the big collie on the step woke to give furious chase in its wake,
then returned slowly, a little conscious under