nity is ripe--"

"Milburn!" Lorne wheeled sharply.

"My future partner. He was planning extensions just as I came along, a
fortunate moment, I hope it will prove, for us both. I'd like to go
into it with you, some time when you have leisure--it's a scheme of
extraordinary promise. By the way, there's an idea in it that ought to
appeal to you--driving the force that's to subdue this wilderness of
yours."

"When you've lived here for a while," said Lorne, painfully preoccupied,
"you'll think it quite civilized. So you're going in with Milburn?"

"Oh, I'm proud of it already! I shall make a good Canadian, I trust. And
as good an imperialist," he added, "as is consistent with the claims of
my adopted country."

"That seems to be the popular view," said Lorne.

"And a very reasonable view, too. But I'm not going to embark on that
with you, old fellow--you shan't draw me in. I know where you are on
that subject."

"So do I--I'm stranded. But it's all right--the subject isn't," Lorne
said quietly; and Hesketh's exclamations and inquiries brought out the
morning's reverse. The young Englishman was cordially sorry, full
of concern and personal disappointment, abandoning his own absorbing
affairs, and devoting his whole attention to the unfortunate exigency
which Lorne dragged out of his breast, in pure manfulness, to lay before
him.

However, they came to the end of it, arriving at the same time at
the door which led up the stairs to the office of Fulke, Warner, and
Murchison.

"Thank you," said Lorne. '"Thank you. Oh, I dare say it will come all
right in the course of time. You return to England, I suppose--or do
you?--before you go in with Milburn?"

"I sail next week," said Hesketh, and a great relief shot into the face
of his companion. "I have a good deal to see to over there. I shan't
get back much before June, I fancy. And--I must tell you--I am doing the
thing very thoroughly. This business of naturalizing myself, I mean. I
am going to marry that very charming girl--a great friend of yours, by
the way, I know her to be--Miss Milburn."

For accepting the strokes of fate we have curiously trivial
demonstrations. Lorne met Hesketh's eye with the steadiness of a lion's
in his own; the unusual thing he did was to take his hands out of his
pockets and let his arms hang loosely by his side. It was as tragic a
gesture of helplessness as if he had flung them above his head.

"Dora is going to marry you?"

"I bel