nse and such
nonsense. Good-bye," she added brusquely, but yet she smiled at the
woman as she turned away.

A moment later she was on her way back to Manitou, but she did not get
to her father's house before the break of day; and in the doorway she
met Madame Bulteel, whose pale, drawn face proclaimed a sleepless night.

"Tell me what has happened? Tell me what has happened?" she asked in
distress.

Fleda took both her hands. "Before I answer, tell me what has happened
here," she said breathlessly. "What news?"

Madame Bulteel's face lighted. "Good news," she exclaimed eagerly.

"He will see--he will see again?" Fleda asked in great agitation.

"The Montreal doctor said that the chances were even," answered Madame
Bulteel. "This man from the States says it is a sure thing."

With a murmur Fleda sank into a chair, and a faintness came over her.

"That's not like a Romany," remarked old Rhodo. "No, it's certainly not
like a Romany," remarked Madame Bulteel meaningly.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE RETURN OF BELISARIUS

Grey days in the prairie country do not come very often, but they are
very depressing when they arrive. The landscape is not of the luscious
kind; it has no close correspondence with a picture by Corot or
Constable; sunlight is needed to give it the touch of the habitable
and the homelike. It was, therefore, unfortunate for the spirits of the
Lebanon people that the meeting summoned by local agitators to discuss
with asperity affairs on both sides of the Sagalac should, while
starting with fitful sunlight in the early morning, have developed to a
bleak greyness by three o'clock in the afternoon, the time set for the
meeting.

Another strike was imminent in the factories at Manitou and in the
railway-shops at Lebanon, due to the stupidity of the policy of
Ingolby's successor as to the railways and other financial and
manufacturing interests. If he had planned a campaign of maladroitness
he could not have more happily fulfilled his object. It was not a good
time for reducing wages, or for quarrelling with the Town Councils of
Manitou and Lebanon concerning assessments and other matters. November
and May always found Manitou, as though to say, "upset." In the former
month, men were pouring through the place on their way to the shanties
for their Winter's work, and generally celebrating their coming
internment by "irrigation"; in the latter month, they were returning
from their Winter's imprisonment, th