l these neutral things about the villa and grounds
to safeguard the one vital thing she feared to have him touch.

"Tell me about yourself," he interrupted at last. "You don't know how I've
worried about you; how I've blamed myself all these slow months for
leaving you as I did. Of course you understood the company decided to send
me in to the Iditarod suddenly, with only a few hours' notice, and to
reach the interior while the summer trails were passable I had to take the
steamer sailing that day. I tried to find you, but you were out of town;
so I wrote."

"I received the letter," she responded quickly. "I want to thank you for
it; it was very pleasant indeed to feel the security of a friend in
reserve. But you had written if there was anything you could do, or if,
any time, I should need you to let you know, and there was no reason to. I
saw I had allowed you to guess the state of my finances; they had been a
little depressed, I confess, but soon after you sailed, I gave an option
on that desert land east of the Cascades and was paid a bonus of three
thousand dollars."

"Then Tisdale did take that property off your hands, after all. I tried to
make myself believe he would; but his offer to buy hinged on the
practicability of that irrigation project."

"I know. He found it was practicable to carry it out. But--I gave the
option to Mr. Banks."

"Lucky Banks," questioned Foster incredulously, "of Iditarod? Why, he
talked of a big farming scheme in Alaska."

"I do not know about that. But he had thought a great deal of David. They
had been partners, it seems, in Alaska. Once, in a dreadful blizzard, he
almost perished, and David rescued him. He knew about the project and
offered to make the payment of three thousand dollars to hold the land
until he found out whether the scheme was feasible. I needed the money
very much. There was a debt it was imperative to close. So I accepted the
bonus without waiting to let Mr. Tisdale know."

Foster's brows clouded. "Well, why shouldn't you? Tisdale has himself to
blame, if he let his opportunity go."

There was a silent interval. They had reached the brow of the bluff and,
coming into the teeth of the wind, she dipped her head and ran to gain the
shelter of the pavilion. Then, while she gathered her breath, leaning a
little on the parapet and looking off to the broad sweep of running sea,
Foster said: "It was that debt that worried me up there in the wilderness.
You had re