nce. I cannot live by the dog-eat-dog code that seems to prevail
wherever folk get jammed together in an unwieldy social mass.

I have said the like to you before. By nature and training I'm
unfitted to live in these crowded places. I love you, little person, I
don't think you realize how much, but I can't make you happy by making
myself utterly miserable. That would only produce the inevitable
reaction. But I still think you are essentially enough like me to meet
me on common ground. You loved me and you found contentment and joy at
our little cabin once. Don't you think it might be waiting there again?

If you really care, if I and the old North still mean anything to you,
a few days or weeks, or even months of separation won't matter. An
affection that can't survive six months is too fragile to go through
life on. I don't ask you to jump the next train and follow me. I
don't ask you to wire me, "Come back, Bill." Though I would come quick
enough if you called me. I merely want you to think it over soberly
and let your heart decide. You know where I stand, don't you, Hazel,
dear? I haven't changed--not a bit--I'm the same old Bill. But I'd
rather hit the trail alone than with an unwilling partner. Don't
flounder about in any quicksand of duty. There is no "I ought to"
between us.

So it is up to you once more, little person. If my way is not to be
your way I will abide by your decision without whining. And whenever
you want to reach me, a message to Felix Courvoiseur, Fort George, will
eventually find me. I'll fix it that way.

I don't know what I'll do after I make that Klappan trip. I'm too
restless to make plans. What's the use of planning when there's nobody
but myself to plan for?

So long, little person. I like you a heap, for all your cantankerous
ways.

BILL.

She laid aside the letter, with a lump in her throat. For a brief
instant she was minded to telegraph the word that would bring him
hurrying back. But--some of the truths he had set down in cold black
and white cut her deep. Of a surety she had drawn her weapon on the
wrong side in the mining trouble. Over-hasty?--yes. And shamefully
disloyal. Perhaps there was something in it, after all; that is to
say, it might be they had made a mistake. She saw plainly enough that
unless she could get back some of the old enthusiasm for that
wilderness life, unless the fascination of magnificent distances, of
silent, breathles