is doubts and irritation
grew weaker as he worked, and when, later, he drove into sight of the
Hastings homestead, his buoyant temperament was beginning to reassert
itself. Clear sunshine streamed down upon the prairie out of a vault of
cloudless blue, and he felt that any faint shadow that might have arisen
between him and the girl could be readily swept away. He was a little
less sure of this when he saw Agatha, who sat near an open window, in a
scantily furnished match-boarded room. She had not slept at all. Her
eyes were heavy, but there was a look of resolution in them which seemed
out of place just then, and it struck him that she had lost the
freshness which had been her distinguishing charm in England.

She rose when he came in, and then, to his astonishment, drew back a
pace or two when he moved impulsively towards her.

"No," she said, with a hand raised restrainingly, "you must hear what I
have to say, and try to bear with me. It is a little difficult, Gregory,
but it must be said at once."

Gregory stood still, gazing at her with consternation in his face, and
for a moment she looked steadily at him. It was a painful moment, for
she was gifted with a clearness of vision which she almost longed to be
delivered from. She saw that the impression which had brought her a
vague sense of dismay on the previous afternoon was wrong. The trouble
was that he had not changed at all. He was what he had always been, and
she had merely deceived herself when she had permitted her girlish fancy
to endow him with qualities and graces which he had never possessed.
There was, however, no doubt that she had still a duty toward him.

He spoke first with a trace of hardness in his voice.

"Then," he rejoined, "won't you sit down? This is naturally a
little--embarrassing--but I'll try to listen."

Agatha sank into a seat by the open window, for she felt physically worn
out, and before her there was a task from which she shrank.

"Gregory," she began, "I feel that we have come near making what might
prove to be a horrible mistake."

"We?" repeated Hawtrey, while the blood rose into his weather-darkened
face. "That means both of us."

"Yes," asserted Agatha, with a steadiness that cost her an effort.

Hawtrey went a step nearer to her. "Do you want me to admit that I've
made a mistake."

"Are you quite sure you haven't?"

She flung the question at him sharply with tense apprehension, for,
after all, if Gregory was sure