e hardness crept
back into her eyes.

"Well," she said, "I'd most been expecting something of this kind when
I heard that man Edmonds was going to the Range. He has got a pull on
Gregory, but he's surely not going to feel quite happy when I get hold
of him."

She rose in another moment, and, saying nothing further, walked back
towards the house, in front of which they came upon Mrs. Hastings.
Sally looked at the latter significantly.

"I'm going over to the Range after supper," she said.

Mrs. Hastings drove away with Agatha, and said very little to her
during the journey, but an hour after they had reached the homestead
she slipped quietly into the girl's room, and found her lying in a big
chair, sobbing bitterly. She sat down close beside her, and laid a
hand upon her shoulder.

"I don't think Sally could have said anything to trouble you like
this," she said.

It was a moment or two before Agatha turned a wet, white face towards
her, and saw gentle sympathy in her eyes. There was, she felt, no
cause for reticence.

"No," she said, "it was the contrast between us. She has Gregory."

Mrs. Hastings made a sign of comprehension. "And you have lost
Harry--but I think you have not lost him altogether. We do not know
that he is dead--but even if it is so, it was all that was finest in
him he offered you. It is yours still."

She broke off, and sat silent a moment or two before she went on again.

"My dear, it is, perhaps, cold comfort, and I am not sure that I can
make what I feel quite clear. Still, Harry was only human, and it is
almost inevitable that, had it all turned out differently, he would
have said and done things that would have offended you. Now he has
left you a purged and stainless memory--one I think which must come
very near to the reality. The man who went up there--for an idea, a
fantastic point of honour--sloughed off every taint of the baseness
that hampers most of us in doing it. It was a man changed and uplifted
above all petty things by a high chivalrous purpose, who made that last
grim journey."

Agatha realised the truth of this. Already Wyllard's memory had become
etherealised, and she treasured it as a very fine and precious thing.
Still, though he now wore immortal laurels, that would not content her
when all her human nature cried out for his bodily presence. She
wanted him, as she had grown to love him, in the warm, erring flesh,
and the vague, splendid vision was co