Cheyne’s voice seemed a trifle strained, as though the music had troubled him. “I know the march, but the composer never wrote what you have played to-night,” he said. “It was – may mine be defended from it! – the shuffle of beaten men. How could you have felt what you put into the music?”

“No,” said Hetty. “Your men could never march like that. It was footsteps going west, and I could not have originated their dragging beat. I have heard it.”

There was a little silence, until Cheyne said softly, “One more.”

“Then,” said Hetty, “you will recognize this.”

The chords rang under her fingers until they swelled into confused and conflicting harmonies that clashed and jarred upon the theme. Their burden was strife and struggle and the anguish of strain, until at last, in the high clear note of victory, the theme rose supreme.

“Yes,” said Flora Schuyler, “we know that. We heard it with the Kaiser in Berlin. Only one man could have written it; but his own countrymen could not play it better than you do. A little overwhelming. How did you get down to the spirit of it, Hetty?”

Lights were brought in just then, and they showed that the girl’s face was a trifle paler than usual, as closing the piano, she turned, with a little laugh, upon the music-stool.

“Oh!” she said, “I don’t quite know, and until to-night it always cheated me. I got it at the depot – no, I didn’t. It was there I felt the marching, and Larry brought the prairie back to me; but I couldn’t have seen what was in the last music, because it hasn’t happened yet.”

“It will come?” said Flora.

“Yes,” said Hetty, “wherever those weary men are going to.”

“And to every one of us,” said Cheyne, with a curious graveness they afterwards remembered. “That is, the stress and strain – it is the triumph at the end of it only the few attain.”

Once more there was silence, and it was a relief when the unemotional Mrs. Schuyler rose.

“Now,” she said, and her voice, at least, had in it the twang of the country, “you young folks have been solemn quite long enough. Can’t you talk something kind of lively?”

They did what they could, and – for Cheyne could on occasion display a polished wit – light laughter filled the room, until Caroline Schuyler, perhaps not without a motive, suggested a stroll on the lawn. If there was dew upon the grass none of them heeded it, and it was but seldom anyone enjoyed the privilege of pacing that sod when Mr. Schuyler was at home. Every foot had cost him many dollars, and it remained but an imperfect imitation of an English lawn. There was on the one side a fringe of maples, and it was perhaps by Mrs. Schuyler’s contrivance that eventually Hetty found herself alone with Cheyne in their deeper shadow. It was not, however, a surprise to her, for she had seen the man’s desire and tacitly fallen in with it. Miss Torrance had discovered that one seldom gains anything by endeavouring to avoid the inevitable.

“Hetty,” he said quietly, “I think you know why I have come to-night?”

The girl stood very still and silent for a space of seconds, and afterwards wondered whether she made the decision then, or what she had seen and heard since she entered the depot had formed it for her.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “I am so sorry!”

Cheyne laid his hand upon her arm, and his voice trembled a little. “Don’t be too hasty, Hetty,” he said. “I would not ask you for very much just now, but I had ventured to fancy you could in time grow fond of me. I know I should have waited, but I am going away to-morrow, and I only want you to give me a promise to take away with me.”

It was with a visible effort the girl lifted her head and looked at him. “I feel horribly mean, Jake, but I can’t,” she said. “I ought to have made you realize that long ago, but I liked you, and, you see, I didn’t quite know. I thought if I waited a little I might be more sure of what I felt for you!”

“Then,” said the man, a trifle hoarsely, “give me what you can now and I will be patient.”

Hetty turned half way from him and closed one hand. The man was pleasant to look upon, in character and disposition all she could desire, and she had found a curious content in his company. Had that day passed as other days had done, she might have yielded to him, but she had been stirred to the depths of her nature during the last few hours, and Flora Schuyler’s warning had been opportune. She had, as she had told him, a liking for Jackson Cheyne, but that, she saw very clearly now, was insufficient. Destiny had sent Larry Grant, with the associations that clung about him, into the depot.

“No,” she said, with a little tremble in her voice, “it wouldn’t be honest or fair to you. I am not half good enough for you.”

The man smiled somewhat mirthlessly, but his voice was reproachful. “You always speak the truth, Hetty. My dear, knowing what the best of us are, I wonder how I dared to venture to ask you to share your life with me.”

Hetty checked him with a little gesture. “Can’t you understand?” she said. “The girl who sang to you now and then isn’t me. I am selfish, discontented, and shallow, and if you hadn’t heard me sing or play you would never have thought of me. There are people who sing divinely, and are – you see, I have met them with the mask off – just horrible.”

“Hetty,” said Cheyne, “I can’t allow anyone to malign you, even if it’s yourself, and if you have any faults, my dear, I’ll take them with the rest. In fact, I would be glad of one or two. They would only bring you a little nearer to me.”

The girl lifted her hand and silenced him. “Jake,” she said appealingly, “please take your answer and go away. If I could only be fond of you in the right way I would, but I can’t, you see. It is not my fault – it isn’t in me.”

The man recognized the finality in her tone, but, feeling that it was useless, made a last endeavour.

“I’m going away to-morrow,” he said. “You might think differently when I come back again.”

The girl’s voice quivered a little. “No,” she said. “I have to be straightforward now, and I know you will try to make it easier for me, even if I’m hurting you. It’s no use. I shall think the same, and by and by you’ll get over this fancy, and wonder what you ever saw in me.”

The man smiled curiously. “I am afraid it will take me a lifetime,” he said.

In another moment he had gone, and Hetty turned, a trifle flushed in face, towards the house across the lawn.

“He took it very well – and I shall never find anyone half so nice again,” she said.

It was half an hour later, and Miss Torrance had recovered at least her outward serenity, when one of Mrs. Schuyler’s neighbours arrived. She brought one or two young women, and a man, with her. The latter she presented to Mrs. Schuyler.

“Mr. Reginald Clavering,” she said. “He’s from the prairie where Miss Torrance’s father lives, and is staying a day or two with us. When I heard he knew Hetty I ventured to bring him over.”

Mrs. Schuyler expressed her pleasure, and – for they had gone back to the lighted room now – Hetty presently found herself seated face to face with the stranger. He was a tall, well-favoured man, slender, and lithe in movement, with dark eyes and hair, and a slightly sallow face that suggested that he was from the South. It also seemed fitting that he was immaculately dressed, for there was a curious gracefulness about him that still had in it a trace of insolence. No one would have mistaken him for a Northerner.

“It was only an hour ago I found we were so near, and I insisted upon coming across at once,” he said. “You have changed a good deal since you left the prairie.”

“Yes,” said the girl drily. “Is it very astonishing? You see, we don’t spend half our time on horseback here. You didn’t expect to find me a sharp-tongued Amazon still?”

Clavering laughed as he looked at her, but the approval of what he saw was a trifle too evident in his black eyes.

“Well,” he said languidly, “you were our Princess then, and there was only one of your subjects’ homage you never took kindly to. That was rough on him, because he was at least as devoted as the rest.”

“That,” said the girl, with a trace of acerbity, “was because he tried to patronize me. Even if I haven’t the right to it, I like respect.”

Clavering made a little gesture, and the deference in it was at least half sincere. “You command it, and I must try to make amends. Now, don’t you want to hear about your father and the Range?”

“No,” said Hetty. “I had a talk with Larry to-day.”

“In New York?”

“Yes. At the depot. He is going back to-morrow. You seem astonished?”

Clavering appeared thoughtful. “Well, it’s Chicago he usually goes to.”

“Usually?” said Hetty. “I scarcely remember him leaving Fremont once in three years.”

Clavering laughed. “Then he leaves it a good deal more often now. A man must have a little diversion when he lives as we do, and no doubt Larry feels lonely. You are here, and Heloise Durand has gone away.”

Hetty understood the implication, for she had some notion how the men who spent months together in the solitude of the prairie amused themselves in the cities. Nor had she and most of her neighbours wholly approved of the liberal views held by Heloise Durand. She had, however, an unquestioning belief in Larry, and none in the man beside her.

“I scarcely think you need have been jealous of him,” she said. “Larry wasn’t Miss Durand’s kind, and he couldn’t be lonely. Everybody was fond of him.”

Clavering nodded. “Of course! Still, Larry hasn’t quite so many friends lately.”

“Now,” said Hetty with a little flash in her eyes, “when you’ve told me that you have got to tell the rest. What has he been doing?”

“Ploughing!” said Clavering drily. “I did what I could to restrain him, but nobody ever could argue with Larry.”

Hetty laughed, though she felt a little dismay. It was then a serious affair to drive the wheat furrow in a cattle country, and the man who did it was apt to be regarded as an iconoclast. Nevertheless, she would not show that she recognized it.

“Well,” she said, “that isn’t very dreadful. The plough is supreme in the Dakotas and Minnesota now. Sooner or later it has got to find a place in our country.”

“Still, that’s not going to happen while your father lives.”

The girl realized the truth of this, but she shook her head. “We’re not here to talk wheat and cattle, and I see Flo Schuyler looking at us,” she said. “Go across and make yourself agreeable to the others for the honour of the prairie.”

Clavering went; but he had left an unpleasant impression behind him, as he had perhaps intended, while soon after he took his departure Flora Schuyler found her friend alone.

“So you sent Jake away!” she said.

“Yes,” said Hetty. “I don’t know what made me, but I felt I had to. I almost meant to take him.”

Flora Schuyler nodded gravely. “But it wasn’t because of that man Clavering?”

“It was not,” said Hetty, with a little laugh. “Don’t you like him? He is rather a famous man back there on the prairie.”

Flora Schuyler shook her head. “No,” she said; “he reminded me of that Florentine filigree thing. It’s very pretty, and I bought it for silver, but it isn’t.”

“You think he’s that kind of man?”

“Yes,” said Miss Schuyler. “I wouldn’t take him at face value. The silver’s all on top. I don’t know what is underneath it, and would sooner somebody else found out.”