y.

Through it all he scarcely spoke a word, not one that was superfluous.
What he was thinking of no one but he himself knew. That he had expected
what had taken place in his absence, his bringing Mrs. Burton proved. At
last realisation had come, and Mary Landor was paying the price of the
brief lethargic respite; paying it with usury, paying it with the
helpless abandon of the dependent. The dreary weather-coloured ranch
house was not a pleasant place to be in that day. Craig left it
thankfully, with a shrug of the shoulders beneath the box-fitting
topcoat, as the door closed behind him. The other passenger, the one who
should have left also and did not, the girl Elizabeth--.

How Landor it was again who, when minutes of waiting had passed, minutes
wherein Craig consumed cigarettes successively, tied the team and
disappeared within doors. What he said none save the girl herself knew;
but when he returned he was not alone, and though the eyes of his
companion were red, there was in her manner no longer a trace of
hesitation.

The two passengers comfortably muffled in the robes of the rear seat,
the driver buttoned the curtains tight about them methodically. The day
was very still, not a sound came to them from over the prairie, and of a
sudden, startlingly clear, from the house itself there came an
interruption: the piteous, hopeless wail of a woman in a paroxysm of
grief, and a moment later the voice of another woman in unemotional,
comforting monotone.

"How," said a choking, answering voice, "I can't go after all, I can't!"

Within the carriage, safe from observation, her companion took her hand
authoritatively, pressed it within his own.

"Yes, you can, Bess," he said low. "Aunt Mary will have to fight it out
for herself. You couldn't help her any by staying."

But already the Indian was gone. Within the house as before, even
keen-eared Mattie Burton failed to catch what he said. Had she done so,
she would have been no wiser, for apparently that moment a miracle took
place. Of a sudden, the hysterical voice was silent. The man spoke again
and--the watcher stared in pure unbelief--her own hand in her
companion's hand, Mary Landor followed him obediently out to the surrey.

"We haven't any time to lose," he said evenly, as he drew back the flap
of the curtain. "You'd better say good-bye now."

"Mother!"

"Bessie, girl. Bessie!"

Again within the ranch house, Mary Landor sank into a seat with the
utter w