ggons that moved on, perhaps, two
miles away across the grey-white sweep of prairie.

"Will we overtake them?" she asked.

"We'll probably come up with Gregory. I'm not sure about Wyllard."

"He drives faster horses?"

"That's not quite the reason. Gregory has patched up one trace with a
bit of string, and odd bolts are rather addicted to coming out of his
waggon. Sometimes it makes trouble. I've known the team leave him
sitting on the prairie, thinking of endearing names for them, and come
home with the pole."

"Does he generally let things fall into that state?"

Sproatly, however, was evidently on his guard.

"Well," he said, "it's certainly that kind of waggon."

Then he flicked the team again, and the jolting rendered it difficult
for Winifred to ask any more questions. The prairie sod was soft with
the thaw, and big lumps of it stuck to the wheels, which every now and
then plunged into ruts other vehicles had made.

In the meanwhile, Agatha and Hawtrey found it almost as impossible to
sustain a conversation, which was, on the whole, a relief to the girl.
The string-patched trace still held, and the waggon pole was a new one,
but where they were just then the white grass was tussocky and long,
and the trail they occasionally plunged into to avoid it had been
churned into a quagmire. Hawtrey had packed the thick driving robe
high about his companion, and slipped one arm about her waist beneath
it; but she was conscious that she rather suffered this than derived
any satisfaction from it. She strove to assure herself that she was
jaded with the journey, which was, in fact, the case, and that the
lowering sky, and the cheerless waste they were crossing, had
occasioned the dejection she felt, which was also possible. There was
not a tree upon the vast sweep of bleached grass which ran all round
her to the horizon. It was inexpressibly lonely, a lifeless
desolation, with only the ploughed-up trail to show that man had ever
traversed it; and the raw wind which swept it set her shivering.

She was, however, forced to admit that her weariness and the dreary
surroundings did not quite explain everything. Even her lover's first
embrace had brought her no thrill, and now the close pressure of his
arm left her quite unmoved. This was almost disconcertingly curious;
but while she would admit no definite reason for it, there was creeping
upon her a vague consciousness that the man was not the one she had so