but not ignorant (for her eyes could see the life about
her), she was the product of an unnatural environment, the
foster-child of hardship, grim determination, and abrupt destiny.
Donald remembered these things, as, with less patience, he recalled
the fact that old Fitzpatrick was opposed to Jean's marrying until
Laura, the elder sister, had been taken off his hands. This had
been intimated from various sources during the turbulent weeks of
the summer, and Jean was now referring to it again.

Had old Fitzpatrick possessed the eyes of Jean's few admirers, he
would have laid the blame for his predicament on his angular
first-born, where it belonged, and not on the perversity of young
men in general.

"Look here, Jean," said Donald, after grave consideration. "You
are old enough to think for yourself--twenty-four, aren't you?"
The girl nodded assent.

"Well, then," he continued, "please don't remind me of what your
father said last summer, if it is in opposition to our wishes and
desires."

"I wouldn't if it was in opposition to them," she retorted, calmly.
He looked at her with startled eyes, a sudden, breathless pain
stabbing him.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean, Donald," she replied, looking at him squarely with her
fearless, truthful eyes, "that last summer was a mistake, as far
as I am concerned."

"Jean!" McTavish rose to his feet unsteadily, his face white with
pain. "Jean! What has happened? What have I done? What lies has
anyone been telling you?" He spoke in a sharp voice; yet, even in
the midst of his bewilderment, he could not but admire her
straightforward cutting to the heart of the matter. There was no
coquetry or false gentleness about her. That was the pattern of
his own nature and he loved her the more for it.

She shrugged her shoulders in the way he adored, and smiled wanly.

"There's an Indian proverb that says, 'When the wind dies, there
is no more music in the corn,'" she replied. "There is no more
music in my heart, that is all."

"What made it die?"

"I can't tell you."

"Evil reports about me?" he snarled suddenly, drawing down his dark
brows, and fixing her with piercing eyes that had gone almost black.

"Not evil reports; merely half-baked rumors that, really, had very
little to do with you, after all. Yet, they changed me." She was
still wholly frank.

"Who carried them to you?" he demanded tensely, the muscles of his
firm jaws tightening as his teeth clenched. "T