s, it's highly improbable that she'd have me." Before he looked up
again he paused to light his pipe, which had gone out. "Since it
evidently isn't Sally, have I met the lady?" he asked.

"You haven't. She's in England."

"It's four years, isn't it, since you were over there?"

Hawtrey lay silent a minute, and then made a little confidential
gesture.

"I'd better tell you all about the thing," he said. "Our folks were
people of some little standing in the county. In fact, as they were far
from rich, they had just standing enough to embarrass them. In most
respects, they were ultra-conventional with old-fashioned ideas, and,
though there was no open break, I'm afraid I didn't get on with them
quite as well as I should have done, which is why I came out to Canada.
They started me on the land decently, and twice when we'd harvested
frost and horse-sickness, they sent along the draft I asked them for.
That is one reason why I'm not going to worry them, though I'd very much
like another now. You see, there are two girls, as well as Reggie, who's
reading for the Bar."

"I don't think you have mentioned the lady yet."

"She's a connection of some friends of ours. Her mother, so far as I
understand it, married beneath her--a man her family didn't like. The
father and mother died, and Agatha, who was brought up by the father's
relations, was often at the Grange, a little, old-fashioned,
half-ruinous place, a mile or two from where we live in the North of
England. The Grange belongs to her mother's folks, but I think there was
still a feud between them and her father's people, who had her trained
to earn her living. We saw a good deal of each other, and fell in love,
as boy and girl will. Well, when I went back, one winter, after I'd been
here two years, Agatha was at the Grange again, and we decided then that
I was to bring her out as soon as I had a home to offer her."

Hawtrey broke off for a moment, and there was a trace of embarrassment
in his manner when he went on again. "Perhaps I ought to have managed it
sooner," he added. "Still, things never seem to go quite as one would
like with me, and you can understand that a dainty, delicate girl reared
in comfort in England would find it rough out here."

Wyllard glanced round the bare room in which he sat, and into the other,
which was also furnished in a remarkably primitive manner.

"Yes," he assented, "I can quite realize that."

"Well," said Hawtrey, "it's a thin