on horseback, to see the
country, and I, you remember, was motoring through Snoqualmie Pass with
the Morgansteins. His train barely missed colliding with our car. Mr.
Morganstein was injured, and the others took the westbound home with him,
but I decided to board the eastbound and go on by stage to Wenatchee, to
see my desert tract, and return by way of the Great Northern. I found the
stage service discontinued, so Mr. Tisdale secured a team instead of a
saddle-horse, and we drove across."

"I see." Foster smiled again. So Tisdale had capitulated on sight. "I see.
You looked the tract over together, yet he hesitated with his offer."

She did not answer directly. They had reached the pergola, and she put out
her hand groping, steadying herself through the shadows. "Mr. Tisdale
believed at the beginning I was some one else," she said then. "I was so
entirely different from his conception of David Weatherbee's wife. In the
end he offered to finance the project if I would see it carried through. I
refused."

"Of course you refused," responded Foster quickly. "It was preposterous of
him to ask it of you. I can't understand it in Tisdale. He was always so
broad, so fine, so head and shoulders above other men, so, well,
chivalrous to women. But, meantime, while he hesitated, Banks came with
his offer?"

"Yes. While he was desperately ill in that hospital. I--I don't know what
he will think of me--when he hears--" she went on with little, steadying
pauses. "It is difficult to explain. So much happened on that drive to the
Wenatchee valley. In the end, during an electrical storm, he saved me from
a falling tree. What he asked of me was so very little, the weight of a
feather, against all I owe him. Still, a woman does not allow even such a
man to finance her affairs; people never would have understood. Besides,
how could I have hoped, in a lifetime, to pay the loan? It was the most
barren, desolate place; a deep, dry gulf shut in by a wicked mountain--you
can't imagine--and I told him I never could live there, make it my home."
They were nearly through the pergola; involuntarily she stopped and,
looking up at Foster, the light from a Japanese lantern illumined her
small, troubled face. "But in spite of everything," she went on, "he
believes differently. To-day his first message came from Washington to
remind me he had not forgotten the project. How can I--when he is so ill--
how can I let him know?"

Foster had had his hou