on, but we younger folks have long
vision, you know. Do you remember how you once told me to swallow your
pills without biting them? I obeyed you for a long, long time; but I've
bitten this one! It's bitter, but it is for the best. The medicine is in
the pills; we might as well know."

"See here, Margaret, I'm not going to use your father's weapons. I only
ask you--to wait! Do not break your engagement; let me see Huntter. Do
not speak to him of this. I can explain, and--" he paused--"if the worse
comes to the worst, the wedding can be postponed; then things can happen
gradually."

"No," Margaret shook her head. "This is his affair and mine, and our love
lies between us. I want--oh! I want to make him feel as I do, if I can;
but above all else he must know that whatever I do is done in love. You
see, I cannot hate him now; by and by it would be different if we were
not just to each other."

"My poor girl! Do you women think you are going to be happier, the world
better, because of--things like this? Men have thought it out!"

"Alone, yes. And women have let you bear the burden--alone. Happiness
is--not all. And who can tell what the world will be when we all do the
work God sent us to do? I know this: we cannot push our responsibilities
off on any one else without stumbling across them sooner or later, for
the overburdened ones cannot carry too much, or forever!"

Ledyard expected Travers for dinner, but, as the time drew near, he felt
that his young partner would not come. At six a note was handed to him:

Kindest of Friends:

To-morrow, or soon, I will come to you; not to-night. I have to be
alone. I am all in confusion. I can see only step by step, and must
follow as I may. Two or three things stand out clear. We haven't, we
men, played the game fair, though God knows we meant to. They--she
and such women as my girl--are right! Blindly, fumblingly right. They
are seeking to square themselves, and we have no business to curse them
for their efforts.

Lastly, I love Priscilla Glynn, and mean to have her, even at the
expense of my profession! You have set my feet on a broad path and
promised an honourable position. I have always felt that to try and
follow in your steps was the noblest ambition I had. I know now that I
could not accomplish this. You have truth and conviction to guide and
uphold you. I have doubt. I must work among my fellows with no hint of
distrust as to my own p