tly handed her
the photograph. "This is your picture; I found it among the dead lad's
things."

The girl, who started visibly, flashed a very keen glance at him.
There was, however, no doubt that he had not intended to produce any
dramatic effect. Then she flushed a little.

"I never knew he had it," she said. "Perhaps he got it from his
sister." She paused, and then, as though impelled to make the fact
quite clear, added, "I certainly never gave it him."

Wyllard smiled gravely, for he recognised that while she was clearly
grieved to hear of his death, she could have had no particular
tenderness for the unfortunate lad. He was, however, a little off his
guard just then.

"Well," he said, "perhaps he took it in the first place for the mere
beauty of it, and it afterwards became a companion--something that
connected him with the Old Country. It appealed in one of those ways
to me."

Again she flashed a sharp glance at him, but he went on unheeding:

"When I found it I meant to keep it merely as a clue, and so that it
could be given up to his relatives some day," he added. "Then I fell
into the habit of looking at it in my lonely camp in the bush at night,
and when I sat beside the stove while the snow lay deep upon the
prairie. There was something in your eyes that seemed to encourage me."

"To encourage you?"

"Yes," Wyllard assented gravely; "I think that expresses it. When I
camped in the bush of the Pacific slope we were either out on the gold
trail--and we generally came back ragged and unsuccessful after
spending several months' wages which we could badly spare--or I was
going from one wooden town to another without a dollar in my pocket and
wondering, how I was to obtain one when I got there. For a time it
wasn't much more cheerful on the prairie: twice in succession the
harvest failed. Perhaps Lance Radcliffe felt as I did."

The girl cut him short. "Why didn't you mention the photograph at
once?"

Wyllard smiled at her. "Oh," he said, "I didn't want to be
precipitate--your folks don't seem to like that; I've met them out
West. I think"--and he seemed to consider--"I wanted to make sure you
wouldn't be repelled by what might look like Colonial _brusquerie_.
You see, you have been over snow-barred divides and through great
shadowy forests with me. We've camped among the boulders by lonely
lakes, and gone down frothing rapids. I felt--I can't tell you
why--that I was bound to meet you