y used to there, while there is, one is told quite frequently, no
limit to what a man may attain to here, if he dares sufficiently."

A little quiver ran through Winston, and he rose and stood looking down
on her, with one brown hand clenched on the table and the veins showing
on his forehead.

"You would have me stay?" he said.

Maud Barrington met his eyes, for the spirit that was in her was the
equal of his. "I would have you be yourself--what you were when you
came here in defiance of Colonel Barrington, and again when you sowed
the last acre of Courthorne's land, while my friends, who are yours
too, looked on wondering. Then you would stay--if it pleased you.
Where has your splendid audacity gone?"

Winston slowly straightened himself, and the girl noticed the damp the
struggle had brought there on his forehead, for he understood that if
he would stretch out his hand and take it what he longed for might be
his.

"I do not know, any more than I know where it came from, for until I
met Courthorne I had never made a big venture in my life," he said.
"It seems it has served its turn and left me--for now there are things
I am afraid to do."

"So you will go away and forget us?"

Winston stood very still a moment, and the girl, who felt her heart
beating, noticed that his face was drawn. Still, she could go no
further. Then he said very slowly, "I should be under the shadow
always if I stay, and my friends would feel it even more deeply than I
would do. I may win the right to come back again if I go away."

Maud Barrington made no answer, but both knew no further word could be
spoken on that subject until, if fate ever willed it, the man returned
again, and it was a relief when Miss Barrington came in with Dane. He
glanced at his comrade keenly, and then seeing the grimness in his
face, quietly declined the white-haired lady's offer of hospitality.
Five minutes later the farewells were said, and Maud Barrington stood
with the stinging flakes whirling about her in the doorway, while the
sleigh slid out into the filmy whiteness that drove across the prairie.
When it vanished, she turned back into the warmth and brightness with a
little shiver and one hand tightly closed.

The great room seemed very lonely when, while the wind moaned outside,
she and her aunt sat down to dinner. Neither of them appeared
communicative, and both felt it a relief when the meal was over. Then
Maud Barrington smiled curiously