o her arms. Her search was over. She
had won. He stood before her, alive and well. He had come back to her.
Her effort had been crowned with success.

He was her old lover, in the flesh. Of course she would experience some
shock on first meeting him, see some changes; but they were nothing that
should keep her from him. He seized her hands in both of his.
"Virginia," he cried. "My God, I can't believe it's you!"

She remained singularly cool in the ardor of this cry. "Why didn't you
write?" she asked. "Why didn't you come home?"

The questions, instead of embarrassing him further, put Harold at his
ease. He was on safe grounds now. He had prepared for just these
queries, on the long walk to the cabin.

"I did write," he cried. "Why didn't you answer?"

The words came glib to his lips. She stared at him in amazement. "You
did--you say you wrote to me?" she asked him, deeply moved.

"Wrote? I wrote a dozen times. And I never received a word--except
from Jules Nathan."

"But Jules Nathan--Jules Nathan is dead!"

"He is?" But Harold's surprise was feigned. This was one piece of news
that had trickled through the wastes to him,--of the death of Jules
Nathan, a man known to them both. It was safe to have heard from
him. The contents of the letter could never be verified. "He told
me--after I'd written many times, and never got an answer--that you
were engaged to be married--to a Chicago man. I thought you'd forgotten
me. I thought you'd been untrue."

Virginia held hard on her faculties and balanced his words. She had
known Chicago men during the six years that she had moved in the most
exalted social circles of her own city. The story held water, even if
she had been inclined to doubt it. She knew it was always easy for an
engagement rumor to start and be carried far, when a prominent girl was
involved. "I didn't get your letters," she told him. "Are you sure you
addressed them right----"

"I thought so----"

"And you didn't get mine----"

"No--not after the first few days. I changed my address--but I told
you of the change in a letter. I never heard from you after that."

"Then it's all been a misunderstanding--a cruel mistake. And you
thought I had forgotten----"

"I thought you'd married some one else. I couldn't believe it when Bill
came to my cabin to-day and told me you were here--I've been trapping
over toward the Yuga. And now--we're together at last."

But curious