rt, and I am not sure that I can
make what I feel quite clear. Still, Harry was only human, and it is
almost inevitable that, had it all turned out differently, he would have
said and done things that would have offended you. Now he has left you a
purged and stainless memory--one, I think, which must come very near to
the reality. The man who went up there--for an idea, a fantastic point
of honor--sloughed off every taint of the baseness that hampers most of
us in doing it. It was a man changed and uplifted above all petty things
by a high chivalrous purpose, who made that last grim journey."

Agatha realized the truth of this. Already Wyllard's memory had become
etherealized, and she treasured it as a very fine and precious thing.
Still, though he now wore immortal laurels, that would not content her
when all her human nature cried out for his bodily presence. She wanted
him, as she had grown to love him, in the warm, erring flesh, and the
vague, splendid vision was cold and remote. There was a barrier greater
than that of crashing ice and bitter water between them.

"Oh!" she cried, "I have felt that. I try to feel it always--but just
now it's not enough."

She turned her face away with a bitter sob, and Mrs. Hastings, who
stooped and kissed her, went out of the room. The older woman knew that
the girl had broken down at last, after months of strain.

* * * * *

It happened that Edmonds, the mortgage-broker, drove over to the Range,
and found Hawtrey waiting for him in Wyllard's room. It was early in the
evening, and he could see the hired men busy outside tossing prairie hay
from the wagons into the great barn. The men were half-naked and grimed
with dust, but Hawtrey, who was dressed in store clothes, evidently had
taken no share in their labors. When Edmonds came in he turned to the
money-lender with anxiety in his face.

"Well?" he questioned brusquely.

"Market's a little stiffer," said Edmonds.

Edmonds sat down and stretched out his hand toward the cigar-box on the
table, while Hawtrey waited with very evident impatience.

"Still moving up?" he asked.

Edmonds nodded. "It's the other folks' last stand," he declared. "With
the wheat ripening as it's doing, the flood that will pour in before the
next two months are out will sweep them off the market. I was half
afraid from your note that this little rally had some weight with you,
and that as one result of it