ared be friendly to the ostracized couple even if he had the
disposition.

Kate and Hughie walked out, very erect and looking straight ahead,
followed by a feeling of satisfaction that this opportunity had
presented itself for the new order to show where it stood in the matter
of accepting doubtful characters on an equal social footing. It had
properly vindicated itself of the charge that western society was lax in
such matters. That they had hurt--terribly hurt--another, was of small
importance.

CHAPTER V

FOR ALWAYS

In the little room upstairs, where less than an hour before she had
dressed in happy excitement, Kate tore off the paper flowers and wild
rose pods. She threw them in a heap on the floor--the cherished mitts,
the bunting dress--while she sobbed in a child's abandonment, with the
tears running unchecked down her cheeks. The music floating up the
stairway and through the transom, the scuffling sound of sliding feet,
added to her grief. She had wanted, oh, how she had wanted to dance!

The thought that Hughie had suffered humiliation because of her was
little short of torture. But he had not deserted her--he had stuck--even
in her misery she gloried in that--and how handsome he had looked! Why,
there was not a man in the room that could compare with him! His
clothes, the way he had borne himself, the something different about him
which she could not analyze. It was a woman's pride that shone in her
swollen red-lidded eyes as she told herself this, while she pinned on
her shabby Stetson in trembling haste, buckled the spurs on her boots
and snatched up her ugly mackinaw.

Hugh was waiting for her in the office below.

The horses were tied to the hitching rack. Kate gulped down the lump
that rose in her throat as she swung into the saddle. The orchestra was
playing the "Blue Danube," and she especially loved that waltz. The
strains followed them up the street, and tears she could not keep back
fell on the horse's mane as she drooped a little over the saddlehorn.

She looked down through dimmed eyes upon the lights streaming from the
windows of the Prouty House, as they climbed the steep pitch to the
bench above town, and the alluring brightness increased the aching
heaviness of her heart, for she felt that she was leaving all they
represented behind her forever. She knew she never could find the
courage to risk going through such an ordeal again.

A childhood without playmates had created a