It was with confused feelings, among which a sense of repugnance predominated, that Agatha walked toward Hawtrey’s room. She was not one of the women who take pleasure in pointing out another person’s duty, for, while she had discovered that this task is apparently an easy one to some people, she was aware that a duty usually looks much more burdensome when it is laid upon one’s self. Indeed, she was conscious just then that one might be shortly thrust upon her, which she would find it very hard to bear, and she became troubled with a certain compunction as she remembered how she had of late persistently driven all thought of it out of her mind.

There was no doubt that she was still pledged to Gregory, and that she had loved him once. Both facts had to be admitted, and it seemed to her that if he insisted she must marry him. Deep down in her there was an innate sense of right and honesty, and she realized that the fact that he was not the man she had once imagined him to be did not release her. It was clear that, if he was about to commit a cruel and unjustifiable action, she was the one person of all others whose part it was to restrain him.

The color was a little plainer in her face than usual when she entered the room where he lay, pipe in hand, in a lounge chair. His attitude of languid ease irritated her. She had seen that there were several things outside which should have had some claim on his attention. A litter of letters and papers lay upon a little table at his side, but the fact that he could not reach them as he lay was suggestive. He did not notice her entrance immediately. He rose, when he saw her, and came forward with outstretched hand.

“I didn’t hear you,” he said. “This is a pleasure I scarcely anticipated.”

Agatha sat down in the chair that he drew out for her near the stove. He noticed that she glanced at the papers on the table, and he laughed.

“Bills, and things of that kind. They’ve been worrying me for a week or two,” he said lightly. He seized the litter, and bundling it together flung it into an open drawer, which he shut with a snap. “Anyway, that’s the last of them for to-day. I’m awfully glad you drove over.”

Agatha smiled. The action was so characteristic of the man. She had once found no fault with Gregory’s careless habits, and his way of thrusting a difficulty into the background had appealed to her. It had suggested his ability to straighten out the trouble when it appeared advisable. Now she told herself that she would not be absurdly hypercritical, and, as it happened, he had given her the lead that she desired.

“I should think that you would have had to give them more attention as wheat is going down,” she remarked.

Hawtrey looked at her with an air of reproach. “It must be nearly three weeks since I have seen you, and now you expect me to talk of farming.” He made a rueful gesture. “If you quite realized the situation it would be about the last thing you would ask me to do.”

Agatha was astonished to remember that three weeks had actually elapsed since she had last met him, and they had only exchanged a word or two then. He had certainly not obtruded himself upon her, for which she was grateful.

“Nobody is talking about anything except the fall in prices just now,” she persisted. “I suppose it affects you, too?”

Gregory, who seemed to accept this as a rebuff, looked at her rather curiously, and then laughed.

“It must be admitted that it does. In fact, I’ve been acquiring parsimonious habits and worrying myself about expenses lately. The expenses have to be kept down somehow, and that’s a kind of thing I never took kindly to.”

“You feel it a greater responsibility when you’re managing somebody else’s affairs?” suggested Agatha, who was still awaiting her opportunity.

“Well,” replied Hawtrey, in whom there was, after all, a certain honesty, “that’s not quite the only thing that has some weight with me. You see, I’m not altogether disinterested. I get a certain percentage—on the margin—after everything is paid, and I want it to be a big one. Things are rather tight just now, and the wretched mortgage on my place is crippling me.”

It had slipped out before he quite realized what he was saying, and he saw the girl’s look of concern. She now realized what Sproatly had meant.

“You are in debt, Gregory? I thought you had, at least, kept clear of that,” she said.

“So I did—for a while. In any case, if Wyllard stays away, and I can run this place on the right lines, I shall, no doubt, get out of it again.”

She was vexed that he should speak so selfishly, for it was clear to her that, if Wyllard did not return until another crop was gathered in, it would be because he was held fast among the Northern ice in peril of his life. Then another thought struck her. She had never quite understood why Gregory had been willing to undertake the management of the Range. In view of the probability that Wyllard had plainly told him what to expect concerning herself, she had been greatly puzzled by his acquiescence. But he had made that point clear by admitting that he had been burdened with a load of debt. But why had he incurred debts? The answer came to her as she remembered having heard Mrs. Hastings or somebody else say that he had spent a great deal of money upon his house and the furnishings for it. It brought her a sudden sense of confusion, for as one result of that expenditure he had been forced into doing what she fancied must have been a very repugnant thing. And she had never even crossed his threshold!

“When did you borrow that money?” she asked sharply.

There was no doubt that Gregory was embarrassed, and her heart softened toward him for his hesitation. It was to further her comfort that he had laid that load upon himself, and he was clearly unwilling that she should know it. That counted for much in her favor.

“Was it just before I came out?” she asked again.

Hawtrey made a little sign of expostulation. “You really mustn’t worry me about these matters, Aggy. A good many of us are in the storekeepers’ or mortgage-jobbers’ hands, and there’s no doubt that if I have another good year at the Range I shall clear off the debt.”

Agatha turned her face away from him for a moment or two. The thing that Gregory had done laid a heavy obligation on her, and she remembered that she had only found fault with him! Even then, stirred as she was, she was conscious that all the tenderness that she had once felt for him had vanished. The duty, however, remained, and with a little effort she turned to him again.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “I’m so sorry.”

Hawtrey smiled. “I really don’t think I deserve a very great deal of pity. As I have said, I’ll probably come out all right next year if I can only keep expenses down.”

Then Agatha remembered the task that she had in hand. It was a very inauspicious moment to set about it, but that could not be helped, and even for Gregory’s own sake she felt that she must win him over.

“There is one way, Gregory, in which I don’t think it ought to be done,” she said. “You assumed Mr. Wyllard’s obligations when you took the farm, and I think you should keep the two Morans.”

Hawtrey started. “Ah!” he replied. “Mrs. Hastings has been setting you on; I partly expected it.”

“She told me,” Agatha admitted. “Unless you will look at the thing as I do, I could almost wish she hadn’t. The thought of that man’s wife shut up in the woods all winter only to find that what she has had to bear has all been thrown away troubles me. Now Wyllard promised to keep those men on, didn’t he?”

“There was no regular engagement so far as I can make out.”

“Still, Moran seems to have understood that he was to be kept on.”

“Yes,” replied Hawtrey, “he evidently does. If the market had gone with us I’d have fallen in with his views. As it hasn’t, every man’s wages count.”

Agatha was conscious of a little thrill of repugnance. Of late Gregory’s ideas had frequently jarred on her.

“Does that release you?”

Hawtrey did not answer this.

“I’ll keep those men on if you want me to,” he promised.

Agatha winced at this. She had discovered that she must not look for too much from Gregory, but to realize that he had practically no sense of moral obligation, and could be influenced to do justice only by the expectation of obtaining her favor positively hurt her.

“I want them kept on, but I don’t want you to do it for that reason,” she said. “Can’t you grasp the distinction, Gregory?”

A trace of darker color dyed Hawtrey’s face, but while she was a little surprised at the evidence that he felt her rebuke, he looked at her steadily. He had not thought much about her during the last month, but now the faint scorn in her voice aroused his resentment.

“Now,” he said, “there are just three reasons, Aggy, why you should have troubled yourself about this thing. You are, perhaps, a little sorry for Moran’s wife, but as you haven’t even seen her that can hardly count for much. The next is, that you don’t care to see me doing what you regard as a shabby thing; perhaps it is a shabby thing in some respects, but I feel it’s justifiable. Of course, if that’s your reason there’s a sense in which, while not exactly complimentary—it’s consoling.”

He broke off, and looked at her with a question in his eyes, and it cost Agatha an effort to meet his. She was not prudish or overconscious of her own righteousness, but once or twice, after the shock of her disillusionment in regard to him had lessened, she had dreamed of the possibility of endowing him little by little with some of the qualities she had once fancied he possessed, and, as she vaguely thought of it, rehabilitating him. Now, however, the thing seemed impossible, and, what was more, the desire to bring it about had gone. Hateful as the situation was becoming, she was honest, and she could not let him credit her with a motive that had not influenced her.

In the meanwhile, her very coldness and aloofness stirred desire in the man, and she shrank as she saw a spark of passion kindling in his eyes. She recognized that there was a strain of grossness in him.

“No,” she responded, “that reason was not one which had any weight with me.”

Hawtrey’s face darkened. “Then,” he said grimly, “we’ll get on to the third. Wyllard’s credit is a precious thing to you; sooner than anything should cast a stain on it you would beg a favor from—me. You have set him up on a pedestal, and it would hurt you if he came down. Considering everything, it’s a remarkably curious situation.”

Agatha grew pale. Gregory was horribly right, for she had no doubt now that he had merely thrust upon her a somewhat distressing truth. It was to save Wyllard’s credit, and for that alone, that she had undertaken this most unpleasant task. She did not answer, and Hawtrey stood up.

“Wyllard has his faults, but there’s this in his favor—he keeps a promise,” he said. “One has a certain respect for a person who never goes back upon his word. Well, because I really think he would like it, I’ll keep those men.”

He paused for a moment, as if to let her grasp the drift of his words, and then turned to her with something that startled her in his voice and manner. “The question is—are you willing to emulate his example?”

Agatha shrank from the glow in his eyes. “Oh!” she broke out, “you cannot urge me now—after what you said.”

Hawtrey laughed harshly. “Well,” he said, “I’ll come for my answer very shortly. It seems that you and Wyllard attach a great deal of importance to a moral obligation—and I must remind you that the time agreed upon is almost up.”

Agatha sat very still for perhaps half a minute, while a sense of dismay took possession of her. There was no doubt that Gregory’s retort was fully warranted. She had insisted upon his carrying out an obligation which would cost him something, not because she took pleasure in seeing him do what was honorable, but to preserve the credit of another man. And now it was with intense repugnance that she recognized that there was apparently no escaping from the obligation she had incurred. Gregory’s attitude was perfectly natural and logical. She had promised to marry him, and he had saddled himself with a load of debt on her account, but the slight pity and tenderness that she had felt for him a few minutes earlier had utterly disappeared. Indeed, she felt that she almost hated him. His face had grown hard and almost brutal, and there was a look she shrank from in his eyes.

She rose with trembling limbs.

“Do you wish to speak to Mrs. Hastings?” she asked.

Hawtrey’s lip curled. “No,” he said, “if she’ll excuse me, I don’t think I do. If you tell her you have been successful, she’ll probably be quite content.”

Agatha went out without another word. Hawtrey lighted his pipe and stretched himself out in his chair, when he heard the wagon drive away a few minutes later. He did not like Mrs. Hastings, and had a suspicion that she had no great regard for him, but he was conscious of a grim satisfaction. There was, though it seldom came to the surface, a current of crude brutality in his nature, and it was active now. When Agatha had first come from England the change in her had been a shock to him, and it would not have cost him very much to let her go. Since then, however, her coldness and half-perceived disdain had angered him, and the interview which was just past had left him in an unpleasant mood. Though it was, perhaps, the last effect he would have expected, it had stirred him to desire a fulfillment of her pledge. It was consoling to feel that he could exact the keeping of her promise. His face grew coarser as he assured himself of his claim, but he had never realized the shiftiness and instability of his own character. It was his misfortune that the impulses which swayed him one day had generally changed the next.

This became apparent when, having occasion to drive in to the elevators on the railroad a week later, he called at a store to make one or two purchases. The man who kept the store laid a package on the counter.

“I wonder if you’d take this along to Miss Creighton as a favor,” he said. “She wrote for the things, and Elliot was to take them out, but I guess he forgot. Anyway, he didn’t call.”

Hawtrey told the clerk to put the package in his wagon. He had scarcely seen Sally since his recovery, and he suddenly remembered that, after all, he owed her a good deal, and that she was very pretty. Besides, one could talk to Sally without feeling the restraint that Agatha’s manner usually laid on him.

The storekeeper laid an open box upon the counter.

“I guess you’re going to be married by and by,” he said. Hawtrey was thinking of Sally then, and the question irritated him.

“I don’t know that it concerns you, but in a general way it’s probable,” he replied.

“Well,” said the storekeeper good-humoredly, “a pair of these mittens would make quite a nice present for a lady. Smartest thing of the kind I’ve ever seen here; choicest Alaska fur.”

Hawtrey bought a pair, and the storekeeper took a fur cap out of another box.

“Now,” he said, “this is just the thing she’d like to go with the mittens. There’s style about that cap; feel the gloss of it.”

Hawtrey bought the cap, and smiled as he swung himself up into his wagon. Gloves are not much use in the prairie frost, and mittens, which are not divided into fingerstalls, will within limits fit almost anybody. This, he felt, was fortunate, for he was not quite sure that he meant to give them to Agatha.

It was bitterly cold, and the pace the team made was slow, for the snow was loose and too thin for a sled of any kind. Night had closed down and Hawtrey was suffering from the cold, when at last a birch bluff rose out of the waste in front of him. It cut black against the cold blueness of the sky and the spectral gleam of snow, but when he had driven a little further a stream of ruddy orange light appeared in the midst of it. A few minutes later he pulled his team up in front of a little log-built house, and getting down with difficulty saw the door open as he approached it. Sally stood in the entrance silhouetted against a blaze of cheerful light.

“Oh!” she cried. “Gregory!”

Hawtrey recognized the thrill in her voice, and took both her hands, as he had once been in the habit of doing.

“Will you let me in?” he asked.

The girl laughed in a strained fashion. She had been a little startled, and was not quite sure yet as to how she should receive him; but Hawtrey drew her in.

“The old folks are out,” she said. “They’ve gone over to Elliot’s for supper. He’s bringing us a package.”

Hawtrey, who explained that he had the parcel, let her hands go, and sat down somewhat limply. He had come suddenly out of the bitter frost into the little, brightly-lighted, stove-warmed room. The comfort and cheeriness of it appealed to him.

“This looks very cozy after my desolate room at the Range,” he remarked.

“Then if you’ll stay I’ll cook you supper. I suppose there’s nothing to take you home?”

“No,” declared Hawtrey with a significant glance at her, “there certainly isn’t, Sally. As a matter of fact, I often wish there was.”

He saw her sudden uncertainty, which was, however, not tinged with embarrassment, and feeling that he had gone far enough he went out to put up his team. When he returned there was a cloth on the table, and Sally was busy about the stove. He sat down and watched her attentively. In some respects, he thought she compared favorably with Agatha. She had a nicely molded figure, and a curious lithe gracefulness of carriage which was suggestive of a strong vitality. Agatha’s bearing was usually characterized by a certain frigid repose. Then Sally’s face was at least as comely as Agatha’s, though attractive in a different way, and there was no reserve in it. Sally was what he thought of as human, frankly flesh and blood. Her quick smile was, as a rule, provocative, and never chilled one as Agatha’s quiet glances sometimes did.

“Sally,” he said, “you’ve grown prettier than ever.”

The girl turned partly towards him with a slow, sinuous movement.

“Now,” she replied quickly, “you oughtn’t to say those things to me.”

Hawtrey laughed; he was usually sure of his ground with Sally.

“Why shouldn’t I, when I’m telling the truth?”

“For one thing, Miss Ismay wouldn’t like it.”

Gregory’s face hardened. “I’m not sure she’d mind. Anyway, Miss Ismay doesn’t like many things I’m in the habit of doing.”

Sally, who had watched him closely, turned away again, but a thrill of exultation ran through her. It had been with dismay she had first heard him speak of his marriage, and she had fled home in an agony of anger and humiliation. That state of mind, however, had not lasted long, and when it became evident that the wedding was postponed indefinitely, she began to wonder whether it was quite impossible that Hawtrey should come back to her. She felt that he belonged to her, although he had never given her any very definite claim on him. She was primitive and passionate, but she was determined, and now that he had done what she had almost expected him to do, she meant to keep him.

“You have fallen out?” she inquired, and contrived to keep the anxiety that she was conscious of out of her voice.

The question, and more particularly the form of it, jarred upon Hawtrey, but he answered it.

“Oh, no,” he said. “As a matter of fact, Sally, you can’t fall out nicely with everybody. Now when we fell out you got delightfully angry—I don’t know whether you were more delightful then or when you graciously agreed to make it up again.” He laughed. “I almost wish I could make you a little angry now.”

Sally had moved nearer him to take a kettle off the stove, and she looked down on him with her eyes shining in the lamplight. She realized that she would have to fight Miss Ismay for the man; but there was this in her favor—that she appealed directly to one side of his nature, as Agatha, even if she had loved him, could not have attracted him.

“Would you?” she asked. “Dare you try?”

“I might if I was tempted sufficiently.”

She leaned upon the table still looking at him mockingly, and she was probably aware that her pose and expression challenged him. Indeed, she could not have failed to recognize the meaning of the sudden tightening of his lips, though she did not in the least shrink from it. She had not the faintest doubt of her ability to keep him at a due distance if it appeared necessary.

“Oh,” she taunted, “you only say things.”

Hawtrey laughed, and stooping down packed up a package he had brought from the store.

“Well,” he said, “after all, I think I’d rather try to please you.” He opened the package. “Are these things very much too big for you, Sally?”

The girl’s eyes glistened at the sight of the mittens he held out. They were very different from the kind she had been in the habit of wearing, and when he carelessly took out the fur cap she broke into a little cry of delight. Hawtrey watched her with a curious expression. He was not quite sure that he had meant Sally to have the things when he had purchased them, but he was quite contented now. The one gift he had diffidently offered Agatha since her arrival in Canada had been almost coldly laid aside.

In a few minutes Sally laid out supper, and as she waited upon him daintily or filled his cup Hawtrey thrust the misgivings he had felt further behind him. Sally, he thought with a feeling of satisfaction, could certainly cook. When the meal was finished he sat talking about nothing in particular for almost an hour, and then it occurred to him that Sally’s mother would be back before very long. She was a person he had no great liking for and he was anxious to go.

“Well,” he said, “I must be getting home. Won’t you let me see you with that cap on?”

Sally, who betrayed no diffidence, put on the cap, and stood before a dingy mirror with both hands raised while she pressed it down upon her gleaming hair. She flashed a smiling glance at him. It was quite sufficient, and as she turned again Hawtrey slipped forward as softly as he could. She swung around, however, with a flush in her face and a forceful restraining gesture.

“Don’t spoil it all, Gregory,” she said sharply.

Hawtrey, who saw that she meant it—which was a cause of some astonishment to him—dropped his arms that were held out to embrace her.

“Oh,” he said, “if you look at it in that way I’m sorry. Good-night, Sally!”

She let him go, but she smiled when he drove away; and half an hour later she showed the cap and mittens to her mother with significant candor. Mrs. Creighton, who was a severely practical person, nodded.

“Well,” she said, “he only wants a little managing if he bought you these, and nobody could say you ran after him.”