ow, and it was with a
curious stirring of confused feelings that she remembered what Wyllard
had said to her there. Through all her thoughts ran a regret that she
had not met him four years earlier.

Regrets, however, were useless, and in order to get rid of them she
walked more briskly up a low rise of ground where the grass was already
turning white again, over the crest of the hill, and down the side to
another hollow. The prairie rolled in wide undulations as the sea does
when the swell of a distant gale underruns a glassy calm. Agatha had
grown fond of the prairie. Its clear skies and fresh breezes had brought
the color to her cheeks and given her composure, though there were times
when the knowledge that she was no nearer a decision in regard to
Gregory weighed heavily upon her. She had seen very little of him and he
had not been effusive then. She could not guess what his feelings might
be, but it had been a relief to her when he had ridden away from the
home of the Hastingses. For a while after she saw him he faded to an
unsubstantial, shadowy figure in the back of her mind.

On this afternoon when Agatha tried to put out of her mind the
disturbing reflections that came to her as she walked, the prairie
stretched away before her, gleaming in the sunlight under a vast sweep
of cloudless blue. She was half-way down the long slope when a clash and
tinkle reached her, and she noticed that a cloud of dust hung about the
hollow where there had been another slough, which evidently had dried up
weeks before. As men and horses were moving amid the dust she supposed
that they were cutting prairie hay, which grows longer in such places
than it does upon the levels. She went on another half-mile, and then
sat down, for she had walked farther than she had intended to go. She
could now see the men more clearly, and, though it was fiercely hot,
they were evidently working at high pressure. Their blue duck clothing
and bare brown arms appeared among the white and ocher tinting of the
grass that seemed charged with brightness, and the sounds of their
activity came up to her. She could distinguish the clashing tinkle of
the mowers, the crackle of the harsh stems, and the rattle of wagon
wheels.

A great mound of gleaming grass, overhanging two half-seen horses, moved
out of the slough, and she watched it draw nearer until she made out
Wyllard sitting in the front of it. She sat still until he pulled the
team up close beside he