A sprinkle of snow was driving down the unpaved street before the biting wind, when Mrs. Hastings came out of a store in the settlement and handed Sproatly, who was waiting close by, several big packages.

“You can put them into the wagon, and tell Jake we’ll want the team as soon as supper’s over,” she said. “We’re going to stay with Mrs. Ormond to-night, and I don’t want to get there too late.”

Sproatly took the parcels, and Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha, who stood a pace or two behind her with Winifred.

“Now,” she announced, “if there’s nothing else you want to buy we’ll go across to the hotel.”

They were standing in a big comfortless room in the hotel when Sproatly rejoined them.

“This place is quite shivery,” observed Mrs. Hastings. “They generally have the stove lighted in the little room along the corridor. Go and see, Jim.”

Sproatly went out. It happened that he was wearing rubber boots, which make very little noise. He proceeded along the dark corridor, and then stopped abruptly when he had almost reached a partly-open door, for he could see into a lighted room. Hawtrey was sitting near the stove on the arm of Sally’s chair.

Though he was not greatly surprised, Sproatly drew back a pace or two into the shadow, for it became evident that there were only two courses open to him. He could judiciously announce his presence by making the door rattle, and then go in and mention as casually as possible that Mrs. Hastings and Agatha were in the hotel. He felt that he ought to do it, but there was the difficulty that he could not warn Hawtrey without embarrassing Sally. Sproatly hesitated in honest doubt as it became evident that the situation was a delicate one. He decided on the alternative. He would go back quietly, and keep Mrs. Hastings out of the room if it could be done.

“I think you would be just as comfortable where you are,” he informed her when he joined the others.

“I’m rather doubtful,” declared Mrs. Hastings. “Wasn’t the stove lighted?”

“Yes,” answered Sproatly, “I fancy it was.”

“But I sent you to make sure.”

“The fact is, I didn’t go in,” said Sproatly uneasily. “There’s somebody in the room already.”

“Any of the boys would go out if they knew we wanted it.”

“Oh, yes,” acquiesced Sproatly. “Still, you see, it’s only a small room, and one of them has been smoking.”

Mrs. Hastings flashed a keen glance at him, and then smiled in a manner he did not like. It suggested that while she yielded to his objections she had by no means abandoned the subject.

“Well,” she said, “what shall we do until supper? This stove won’t draw properly, and I don’t feel inclined to sit shivering here.”

Then Sproatly was seized by what proved to be a singularly unfortunate inspiration.

“It’s really not snowing much, and we’ll go down to the depÔt and watch the Atlantic express come in,” he suggested. “It’s one of the things everybody does.”

This was, as a matter of fact, correct. There are not many amusements open to the inhabitants of the smaller settlements along the railroad track, and the arrival of the infrequent trains is a source of unflagging interest. Mrs. Hastings fell in with the suggestion, and Sproatly was congratulating himself upon his diplomacy, when Agatha stopped as they reached the door of the hotel.

“Oh,” she said, “I’ve only brought one of my mittens.”

“I’ll go back for the other,” responded Sproatly promptly.

“You don’t know where I left it.”

“Then I’ll lend you one of mine. It will certainly go on,” the man persisted.

Agatha objected to this, and Sproatly, who fancied that Mrs. Hastings was watching him, let her go, after which he and the others moved out into the street. Agatha ran back to the room they had left, and, finding the mitten, had reached the head of the stairway when she heard voices behind her in the corridor. She recognized them, and turned in sudden astonishment. Standing in the shadow she involuntarily waited. Not far away a stream of light from the door of the room shone out into the corridor. Next moment Hawtrey and Sally approached the door, and as the light fell upon them the blood surged into Agatha’s face, for she remembered the embarrassment in Sproatly’s manner, and that he had done all he could to prevent her from going back for the mitten.

Hawtrey spoke to Sally, and there was no doubt whatever that he called her “My dear.” Filled with burning indignation, Agatha stood still for a moment and they were almost upon her before she turned and fled precipitately down the stairway. She felt that this was horribly undignified, but she could not stay and face them. When she overtook the others she had recovered her outward composure, and they went on together toward the track. As yet she was conscious only of anger at Gregory’s treachery. That feeling possessed her too completely for her to be conscious of anything else.

Cold as it was, there were a good many loungers in the station, and Sproatly, who spoke to one or two of them, led his party away from the little shed where they loitered, and walked briskly up and down beside the track until a speck of blinking light rose out of the white wilderness. The light grew rapidly larger, until they could make out a trail of smoke behind it, and the roar of wheels rose in a long crescendo. Then a bell commenced to toll, and the blaze of a big lamp beat into their faces as the great locomotive came clanking into the station.

The locomotive stopped, and the light from the long car windows fell upon the groups of watching fur-clad men, while here and there a shadowy object that showed black against it leaned out from a platform. There was, however, no sign of any passengers for the train until at the last moment two figures appeared hurrying along. They drew nearer, and Agatha set her lips tight as she recognized them, for the light from a vestibule shone into Hawtrey’s face as he half lifted Sally on to one of the platforms and sprang up after her. Then the bell tolled again, and the train slid slowly out of the station with its lights flashing upon the snow.

Agatha turned away abruptly and walked a little apart from the rest. The thing, she felt, admitted of only one explanation. Sproatly’s diplomacy had had a most unfortunate result, and she was sensible of an intolerable disgust. She had kept faith with Gregory, at least as far as it was possible, and he had utterly humiliated her. The affront he had put upon her was almost unbearable.

In the meanwhile, Mrs. Hastings walked up to Sproatly, who, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, had drawn back judiciously into the shadow.

“Now,” she said, “I understand. You, of course, anticipated this.”

“I didn’t,” declared Sproatly with a decision which carried conviction with it. “I certainly saw them at the hotel, but how could I imagine that they had anything of the kind in view?”

He broke off for a moment, and waved his hand. “After all,” he added, “what right have you to think it now?”

Mrs. Hastings laughed somewhat harshly. “Unfortunately, I have my eyes, but I’ll admit that there’s a certain obligation on me to make quite certain before going any further. That’s why I want you to ascertain where he checked his baggage to.”

“I’m afraid that’s more than I’m willing to undertake. Do you consider it advisable to set the station agent wondering about the thing? Besides, once or twice in my career appearances have been rather badly against me, and I’m not altogether convinced yet.”

Mrs. Hastings let the matter drop, and they went back rather silently to the hotel. As soon as supper was past, Mrs. Hastings bade Sproatly get their wagon out and she drove away with Agatha. During the long, cold journey she said very little to the girl, and they had no opportunity of private conversation when they reached the homestead where they were to spend the night. Agatha hated herself for the thought in her mind, but everything seemed to warrant it, and it would not be driven out. She had heard what Gregory had called Sally at the hotel, and the fact that he must have bought his ticket and checked his baggage earlier in the afternoon when there was nobody about, so that he could run down with Sally at the last moment, evidently in order to escape observation, was very significant.

The two women went home next day, and on the following morning a man, who was driving in to Lander’s, brought Mrs. Hastings a note from Sproatly. It was very brief, and ran:

“Gregory arrived same night by Pacific train. It is evident he must have got off at the next station down the line.”

Mrs. Hastings showed it to her husband.

“I’m afraid we have been too hasty. What am I to do with this?” she said.

Hastings smiled. “Since you ask my advice, I’d put it into the stove.”

“But it clears the man. Isn’t it my duty to show it to Agatha?”

“Well,” said Hastings reflectively, “I’m not sure that it is your duty to put ideas into her mind when you can’t be quite certain that she has entertained them.”

“I should be greatly astonished if she hadn’t,” answered Mrs. Hastings.

Hastings made an expressive gesture. “Oh,” he remarked, “you’ll no doubt do what you think wisest. When you come to me for advice you have usually made up your mind, and you merely expect me to tell you that you’re right.”

Mrs. Hastings thought over the matter for another hour or two. For one thing, Agatha’s quiet manner puzzled her, and she did not know that the girl had passed a night in agony of anger and humiliation, and had then become conscious of a relief of which she was ashamed. There was, however, no doubt that while Agatha blamed herself in some degree for what had happened, she did feel as if a weight had been lifted from her heart. She was sitting alone in a shadowy room watching the light die off the snowy prairie outside, when Mrs. Hastings came softly in and sat down beside her.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Hastings, “it’s rather difficult to speak of, but that little scene at the station must have hurt you.”

Agatha looked at her quietly and searchingly, but there was only sympathy in her face, and she leaned forward impulsively.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “it hurt me horribly, because I feel it was my fault. I was the cause of it!”

“How could that be?”

“If I had only been kinder to Gregory he would, perhaps, never have thought of that girl. I must have made it clear that he jarred upon me. I drove him”—Agatha turned her face away, while her voice trembled—“into that woman’s arms. No doubt she was ready to make the most of the opportunity.”

Mrs. Hastings thought that the girl’s scorn and disgust were perfectly natural, even though, as it happened, they were not quite warranted.

“In the first place,” she suggested, “I think you had better read this note.”

Agatha took the note, and there was light enough left to show that the blood had crept into her face when she laid it down again. For almost a minute she sat very still.

“It is a great relief to know that I was wrong—in one respect, but you must not think I hated this girl because Gregory had preferred her to me,” she said at last. “When the first shock had passed, there was an almost horrible satisfaction in feeling that he had released me—at any cost. I suppose I shall always be ashamed of that.”

She broke off a moment, and her voice was very steady when she went on again:

“Still, what Sproatly says does not alter the case so much after all. It can’t free me of my responsibility. If I hadn’t driven him, Gregory would not have gone to her.”

“You consider that in itself a very dreadful thing?”

Agatha looked at Mrs. Hastings with suddenly lifted head. “Of course,” she answered. “Can you doubt it?”

Mrs. Hastings laughed, though there was a little gleam in her eyes, for this was an opportunity for which she had been waiting.

“Then,” she said, “you spoke like an Englishwoman—of station—just out from the Old Country—but I’m going to try to disabuse you of one impression. Sally, to put it crudely, is quite good enough for Gregory. In fact, if she had been my daughter I’d have kept him away from her. To begin with, once you strip Gregory of his little surface graces, and his clean English intonation, how does he compare with the men you meet out here? What does his superiority consist of? Is he truer or kinder than you have found most of them to be? Has he a finer courage, or a more resolute endurance—a greater capacity for labor, or a clearer knowledge of the calling by which he makes his living?”

Agatha did not answer. She could not protest that Gregory possessed any of these qualities, and Mrs. Hastings continued:

“Has he even a more handsome person? I could point to a dozen men between here and the railroad, whose clean, self-denying lives have set a stamp on them that Gregory will never wear. To descend to perhaps the lowest point of all, has he more money? We know he wasted what he had—probably in indulgence—and there is a mortgage on his farm. Has he any sense of honor? He let Sally believe he was in love with her before you even came out here, and of late, while he still claimed you, he has gone back to her. Can’t you get away from your point of view, and realize what kind of a man he is?”

Agatha turned her head away. “Ah!” she cried, “I realized him—several months ago. They were painful months to me. But you are quite sure he was in love with Sally before I came out?”

“Well,” Mrs. Hastings declared, “his conduct suggested it.” She laid a caressing hand on the girl’s shoulder. “You tried to keep faith with him. Tried desperately, I think. Did you succeed?”

Agatha contrived to meet the older woman’s eyes.

“At least, I would have married him.”

“Then,” asserted Mrs. Hastings, “I can forgive Gregory even his treachery, and you have no cause to pity him. Sally is simple—primitive, you would call her—but she’s clever and capable in all practical things. She will bear with Gregory when you would turn from him in dismay, and, when it is necessary, she will not shrink from putting a little judicious pressure on him in a way you could not have done. It may sound incomprehensible, but that girl will lead or drive Gregory very much further than he could have gone with you. She doesn’t regard him as perfection, but she loves him.”

Mrs. Hastings paused, and for several minutes there was a tense silence in the little shadowy room. It had grown almost dark, and the square of the window glimmered faintly with the dim light flung up by the snow.

Agatha turned slowly in her chair. “Thank you,” she said in a low voice. “You have taken a heavy weight off my mind.”

She paused a moment, and then added, “You have been a good friend all along. It was supreme good fortune that placed me in your hands.”

Mrs. Hastings patted her shoulder, and then went out quietly. Agatha lay still in her chair beside the stove. The fire snapped and crackled cheerfully, but except for the pleasant sound, there was a restful quietness. The room was cozily warm, though its occupant could hear a little icy wind wail about the building. It swept Agatha’s thoughts away to the frozen North, and she realized what it had cost her to keep faith with Gregory as she pictured a little snow-sheeted schooner hemmed in among the floes, and two or three worn-out men hauling a sled painfully over the ridged and furrowed ice. The man who had gone up into that great desolation had been endued with an almost fantastic sense of honor, and now he might never even know that she loved him. She admitted that she had loved him for several months.