eeled the horses she was only conscious that he
was very close to her and that Breckenridge and Miss Schuyler were driving
slowly a little distance in front of them. Then, glancing up, as though
under compulsion, she saw that Grant was looking down upon her.

"It is not what I meant to tell you, but doesn't this remind you of old
times, Hetty?" he said.

"I don't want to remember them--and what have they to do with what
concerns us now?" said the girl.

There was a new note in the man's voice that was almost exultant in its
quietness. "A good deal, I think. Hetty, if you hadn't driven so often
beside me here, would you have done what you have to-night?"

"No," said the girl tremulously.

"No," Grant said. "You have done a rash as well as a very generous
thing."

"It was rash; but what could I do? We were, as you remind me, good friends
once."

"Yes," he said. "I can't thank you, Hetty--thanks of any kind wouldn't be
adequate--and there is nothing else I can offer to show my gratitude,
because all I had was yours already. You have known that a long while,
haven't you?"

The girl looked away from him. "I was not good enough to understand its
value at first, and when I did I tried to make you take it back."

"I couldn't," he said gently. "It was perhaps worth very little; but it
was all I had, and--since that day by the river--I never asked for
anything in return. It was very hard not to now and then, but I saw that
you had only kindness to spare for me."

"Then why do you talk of it again?"

"I think," said Grant very quietly, "it is different now. After to-night
nothing can be quite the same again. Hetty, dear, if you had missed me and
I had ridden on to the bridge----"

"Stop!" said the girl with a shiver. "I dare not think of it. Larry, can't
you see that just now you must not talk in that strain to me?"

"But there is a difference?" and Grant looked at her steadily.

For a moment the girl returned his gaze, her face showing very white in
the faint light flung up by the snow; but she sat very straight and still,
and the man's passion suddenly fell from him.

"Yes," she said softly, "there is. I was only sure of it when I fancied I
had missed you a few minutes ago; but that can't affect us, Larry. We can
neither of us go back on those we belong to, and I know how mean I was
when I tried to tempt you. You were staunch, and if I were less so, you
would not respect me."

Grant sighed. "You still believe