s or among the boulders with
your picture for company. When I was worn-out and despondent you
encouraged me. You have been with me high up in the snow on the
ranges, and through leagues of shadowy bush. That is not all, however,
though it's difficult to speak of such things to you. There were times
when as we drove the branch line up the gorge beneath the big divide,
all one's physical nature shrank from the monotony of brutal labour.
The pay-days came round, and opportunities were made for us--to forget
what we had borne, and had still to bear, in the snow and the icy
water. Then you laid a restraining hand on me. I could not take your
picture where you could not go. Is all that to count for nothing?"

Then he spread his hands out forcibly. "As to the other question:
can't you get beyond the narrow point of view? We're in a big, new
country where the old barriers are down. We're merely flesh and
blood--red blood--and we speak as we feel. Admitting that I was sorry
for you--I am--how does that tell against me--or you? There's one
thing only that counts at all: I want you."

Agatha was stirred, and almost dismayed at the effect his words had on
her. He had spoken with a force and passion that had nearly swept her
away with it. The vigour of the new land throbbed in his voice, and,
flinging aside all cramping restraints and conventions, he had, as he
had said, claimed her as flesh and blood. There was no doubt that her
nature responded, and it was significant that Gregory had faded
altogether out of her mind; but there was, after all, pride in her, and
she could not quite bring herself to look at things from his
standpoint. All her prejudices and her sense of fitness were opposed
to it. For one thing, he had taken the wrong way when he had admitted
that he was sorry for her. She did not want his compassion, and she
shrank from the shadow of the thought that she would marry him--for
shelter. It brought her a sudden, shameful confusion as she remembered
the haste with which marriages were, it seemed, arranged on the
prairie. Then, as the first unreasoning impulse which had almost
compelled her to yield to him passed away, she remembered that it was
scarcely two months since she had met him in England. It was
intolerable that he should think she would be willing to fall into his
arms merely because he had held them out to her.

"It's a little difficult to get beyond one's sense of what is fit," she
sa