sn't there a certain risk in the thing?"

"A risk?"

Winifred nodded. "Yes," she said, "rather a serious one. Four years is a
long time, and the man may have changed. In a new country where life is
so different, it must be a thing they're rather apt to do."

A faint, half-compassionate, half-tolerant smile crept into Agatha's
eyes. The mere idea that the sunny-tempered, brilliant young man to whom
she had given her heart could have changed or degenerated in any way
seemed absurd to her. Winifred, however, went on again.

"There's another point," she said. "If he's still the same, which isn't
likely, there has certainly been a change in you. You have learned to
see things more clearly, and have acquired a different standard from the
one you had then. One can't help growing, and as one grows one looks for
more. One is no longer pleased with the same things; it's inevitable."

She broke off for a moment, and her voice became gentler.

"Well," she added, "I've done my duty in trying to point this out to
you, and now there's only another thing to say: since you're clearly
bent on going, I'm going with you."

Agatha looked astonished, but there was a suggestion of relief in her
expression, for the two had been firm friends and had faced a good deal
together.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "that gets over the one difficulty!"

Winifred made a little whimsical gesture.

"I'm not quite sure that it does. The difficulty will probably be when I
arrive in Canada, but I'm a rather capable person, and I believe they
don't pay ninepence a thousand words in Winnipeg. Besides, I could keep
the books at a store or a hotel, and at the very worst Gregory could,
perhaps, find a husband for me. Women, I hear, are held in some
estimation in that country. Perhaps there's a man out there who would
treat decently even a little, plain, vixenish-tempered person with a
turned-up nose."

Crossing the room again she banged the cover down on the typewriter, and
then turned to Agatha with a suggestion of haziness in her eyes.

"Anyway, I'm very tired of this country. It would be intolerable when
you went away."

Agatha stretched out a hand and drew the girl down beside her. She no
longer feared adverse fortune and loneliness, and she was filled with a
gentle compassion, for she knew how hard a fight Winifred had made, and
part at least of what she had borne.

"My dear," she said, "we will go together."

Then she opened the second letter, which