"I suppose I shall have
to go away--to Winnipeg, most probably. I could teach, I think."

"How are you and Gregory to get used to each other if you go away?"

Agatha made a helpless gesture. "I hadn't looked at it in that light."

"Are you very anxious to get used to him?"

Agatha shrank from the question; but there was a constraining kindliness
in the older woman's eyes.

"I daren't quite think about it yet. I mean to try. I must try. I seem
to be playing an utterly contemptible, selfish part, but I could not
marry him--now!"

Mrs. Hastings crossed the room, and sat down by her side.

"My dear," she said, "as I told you, I think you are doing right, and I
believe I know how you feel. Everybody prophesied disaster when I came
out to join Allen from a sheltered home in Montreal, and at the
beginning my life here was not easy to me. It was all so different, and
there were times when I was afraid, and my heart was horribly heavy. If
it hadn't been for Allen I think I should have given in and broken down.
He understood, however. He never failed me."

Agatha's eyes grew misty, and she turned her head away.

"Yes," she replied, "that would make it wonderfully easier."

"You must forgive me," apologized Mrs. Hastings. "I was tactless, but I
didn't mean to hurt you. Well, one difficulty shouldn't give us very
much trouble. Why shouldn't you stay here with me?"

Agatha turned towards her abruptly with a look of relief in her face,
which faded quickly. She liked this woman, and she liked her husband,
but she remembered that she had no claim on them.

"Oh," she declared, "it is out of the question."

"Wait a little. I'm proposing to give you quite as much as you will
probably care to do. There are my two little girls to teach, and I think
they have rather taken to you. I can scarcely find a minute for their
lessons, and, as you have seen, there is a piano which has only a few of
the keys broken. Besides, we have only one Scandinavian maid who smashes
everything that isn't made of indurated fiber, and I'm afraid she'll
marry one of the boys in a month or two. It was only by sending the
kiddies to Brandon and getting Mrs. Creighton, a neighbor of ours, to
look after Allen, who insisted on my going, that I was able to get to
Paris with some Montreal friends. In any case, you'd have no end of
duties."

"You are doing this out of--charity!"

Mrs. Hastings laughed. "A week or two ago, Allen wrote to some friends
of his