ome of the customs prevalent in the
trail-choppers' shanties and the logging-camps are a little primitive,
and one can't quite overcome a certain distaste for them."

"That was not quite what I meant," said Ida.

Weston was startled, but she saw that he would not allow himself to
wonder what she really did mean.

"Anyway," he answered doggedly, "I suppose I can bear any
unpleasantness of that kind, which is fortunate, because there's
apparently no way out of it. After all, it's one consolation to feel
that I'm only going back to what I was accustomed to before I found
the mine."

"Ah," said Ida, "you are very wrong in one respect. You speak as if
you could bear the trouble alone. Don't you think it would hurt
anybody else as much to let you go?" Then, while the blood crept into
her face, she fixed her eyes on him. "Yes," she added simply, "I mean
myself."

Weston rose, and stood leaning on the back of his chair, with one hand
tightly closed. He had struggled stubbornly, but it was evident that
his strength had suddenly deserted him and that he was beaten now.

"It would hurt you as much?" he said, with a curious harshness.
"That's quite impossible. The hardest, bitterest thing I could ever
have to face would be to go away from you."

He flung out the closed hand.

"Now," he said, "you know. I've thrown away common sense and prudence,
all sense of what is fitting and all that is due to you. None of those
things seem to count just now."

He drew a little nearer.

"I fell in love with you at Kinnaird's camp, and tried hard to crush
that folly. Then I found the mine, and for a few mad weeks I almost
ventured to believe that I might win you. After that, the fight to
drive your memory out of my heart had to be made again."

"It was hard?" asked Ida very softly.

"It was relentlessly cruel." Weston's voice grew sharper. "Still, I
tried to make it. I gave way in only one point--I came to see you now
and then. Now it's so hard that I'm beaten. I've failed in this thing
as I've failed in the other."

He straightened himself suddenly, with a little forceful gesture.

"I'm beaten all round, beaten to my knees; but I don't seem ashamed.
Even if you can't forgive me, I'm glad I've told you."

"I think," said Ida, "I could forgive you for one offense--the one you
seem to think most important--rather easily. It would have been ever
so much harder to do that had you gone away without telling me."

"You mean that?" c