s. Hastings, "I can forgive Gregory even his treachery,
and you have no cause to pity him. Sally's simple--primitive, you
would call her--but she's clever and capable in all practical things,
She will bear with Gregory when you would turn from him in dismay, and
when it's necessary she will not shrink from putting a little judicious
pressure on him in a way you could not have done. It may sound
incomprehensible, but that girl will lead or drive Gregory very much
further than he could have gone with you. She doesn't regard him as
perfection, but she loves him."

She broke off, and there was for several minutes a tense silence in the
little shadowy room. It had grown almost dark, and the square of the
window glimmered faintly with the dim light flung up by the snow.

Then Agatha turned slowly in her chair. "Thank you," she said in a low
voice. "You have taken a heavy weight off my mind."

She paused a moment, and then added, "You have been a good friend all
along. It was supreme good fortune that placed me in your hands."

Mrs. Hastings patted her shoulder, and then went out quietly, and
Agatha lay still in her chair beside the stove. It snapped and
crackled cheerfully, but save for that there was a restful quietness,
and the room was cosily warm, though she could hear a little icy wind
wail about the building. It swept her thoughts away to the frozen
North, and she realised what it had cost her to keep faith with Gregory
as she pictured a little snow-sheeted schooner hemmed in among the
floes, and two or three worn-out men hauling a sled painfully over the
ridged and furrowed ice. The man who had gone up into that great
desolation had been endued with an almost fantastic sense of honour,
and now he might never even know that she loved him. She admitted that
she had loved him several months ago.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THROUGH THE SNOW.

Next morning, the mail-carrier, who drove up to the homestead
half-frozen and white all over out of a haze of falling snow, brought
Agatha a note from Gregory. It was brief, and she read it with a smile
of half-amused contempt, though she admitted that, considering
everything, he had handled the somewhat embarrassing situation
gracefully. This, however, was only what she had expected of him, and
she recognised that it was equally characteristic of the man that he
had written releasing her from her engagement instead of coming
himself. Gregory, as she realised now, had