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Mrs. Hill looked at Violet’s blazing eyes and wilted.

“I–didn’t tell him anything–much.”

“What was it?”

Mrs. Hill began to sob.

“Don’t look at me like that, Violet! He just dropped in and we were talking about you–at least I was–and I had heard that Harry St. Maur was paying you marked attention before you came west–and–and that some people thought you were engaged–and so–and so–“

“You told Mr. Spencer that I was engaged to Harry St. Maur?”

“No-o-o–I just hinted. I didn’t mean an-any harm. I never dreamed you’d really c-care. I thought you were just amusing yourself–and so did everybody–and I wanted Ned Madison–“

Violet had turned very pale.

“I love him,” she said hoarsely, “and you’ve sent him away. He’s gone to Rainy River. I shall never see him again!”

“Oh, yes, you will,” gasped Mrs. Hill faintly. “He’ll come back when he knows–you c-can write and tell him–“

“Do you suppose I am going to write and ask him to come back?” said Violet wildly. “I’ve enough pride left yet to keep me from doing that for a man at whose head I’ve thrown myself openly–yes, openly, and who has never, in words at least, told me he cared anything about me. I will never forgive you, Edith!”

Then Mrs. Hill found herself alone with her lacerated feelings. After soothing them with a good cry, she set to work thinking seriously. There was no doubt she had muddled things badly, but there was no use leaving them in a muddle when a word or two fitly spoken might set them straight.

Mrs. Hill sat down and wrote a very diplomatic letter before she went to bed, and the next morning she waylaid Sergeant Fox and asked him if he would ride down to Rainy River with a very important message for Mr. Spencer. Sergeant Fox wondered what it could be, but it was not his to reason why; it was his only to mount and ride with all due speed, for Mrs. Hill’s whims and wishes were as stringent and binding as the rules of the force.

That evening when Mrs. Hill and Violet–the latter very silent and regal–were sitting on the verandah, a horseman came galloping up the Rainy River trail. Mrs. Hill excused herself and went in. Five minutes later John Spencer, covered with the alkali dust of his twenty miles’ ride, dismounted at Violet’s side.

* * * * *

The M.P.s gave a concert at the barracks that night and Mrs. Hill and her Major went to it, as well as everyone else of any importance in town except Violet and Spencer. They sat on Major Hill’s verandah and watched the moon rising over the bluffs and making milk-white reflections in the prairie lakes.

“It seems a year of misery since last night,” sighed Violet happily.

“You couldn’t have been quite as miserable as I was,” said Spencer earnestly. “You were everything–absolutely everything to me. Other men have little rills and driblets of affection for sisters and cousins and aunts, but everything in me went out to you. Do you remember you told me the first time we met that love would be a revelation to me? It has been more. It has been a new gospel. I hardly dared hope you could care for me. Even yet I don’t know why you do.”

“I love you,” said Violet gravely, “because you are you.”

Than which, of course, there could be no better reason.