instructions and a power of attorney. Then I went straight to Glasgow,
took steamer for Canada, and here I am. That was near five years ago."

"And the letter from your wife?" asked Kitty Tynan demurely and slyly.

The Young Doctor looked at Crozier, surprised at her temerity, but
Crozier only smiled gently. "It is in the desk there. Bring it to me,
please," he said.

In a moment Kitty was beside him with the letter. He took it, turned it
over, examined it carefully as though seeing it for the first time, and
laid it on his knee.

"I have never opened it," he said. "There it is, just as it was handed
to me."

"You don't know what is in it?" asked Kitty in a shocked voice. "Why, it
may be that--"

"Oh, yes, I know what is in it!" he replied. "Her brother's confidences
were enough. I didn't want to read it. I can imagine it all."

"It's pretty cowardly," remarked Kitty.

"No, I think not. It would only hurt, and the hurting could do no good.
I can hear what it says, and I don't want to see it."

He held the letter up to his ear whimsically. Then he handed it back to
her, and she replaced it in the desk.

"So, there it is, and there it is," he sighed. "You have got my
story, and it's bad enough, but you can see it's not what Burlingame
suggested."

"Burlingame--but Burlingame's beneath notice," rejoined Kitty. "Isn't
he, mother?"

Mrs. Tynan nodded. Then, as though with sudden impulse, Kitty came
forward to Crozier and leaned over him. The look of a mother was in her
eyes. Somehow she seemed to herself twenty years older than this man
with the heart of a boy, who was afraid of his own wife.

"It's time for your beef-tea, and when you've had it you must get your
sleep," she said, with a hovering solicitude.

"I'd like to give him a threshing first, if you don't mind," said the
Young Doctor to her.

"Please let a little good advice satisfy you," Crozier remarked
ruefully. "It will seem like old times," he added rather bitterly.

"You are too young to have had 'old times,'" said Kitty with gentle
scorn. "I'll like you better when you are older," she added.

"Naughty jade," exclaimed the Young Doctor, "you ought to be more
respectful to those older than yourself."

"Oh, grandpapa!" she retorted.

CHAPTER VII. A WOMAN'S WAY TO KNOWLEDGE

The harvest was over. The grain was cut, the prairie no longer waved
like a golden sea, but the smoke of the incense of sacrifice still rose
in innumerable spira