“Such good news!” he cried; “the strike is over. There has been some kind of a compromise between the company and the men, and some of the mails are through. I’ve got a ton-load for you in this gunny-sack. Nothing for me, of course, except my religious paper. That never gets lost.” She put the magazines on one side, and opened her home letters. They were the first she had received in answer to her own letter telling of Robert’s death. Her father wrote most kindly, enclosing an order on one of the banks to cover her passage-money. “Of course you will come back at once,” he said, “and take up your life where you left it.” The letter fell from her hands. The old life was offered to her again. There it was waiting for her, and she was free to go and accept it, and taste once more of the things for which she had been starving. She was free. There was no one and nothing to hinder her. She could go back, and put these sad events and her remorse and her great mistake away from her remembrance. She argued that one had not to suffer all through one’s life for a mistake. She had not meant to be cruel to poor Robert, but she ought never to have come at all. And now she was free to go, and once at home again these months would seem to her as a time of which she had dreamed during an uneasy night. But no sense of gladness or thankfulness came over her. She sat there, and bit her lips. Home? What did she want with home? She rose and went into the living-room, carelessly throwing her letters and papers on the table. The bank bill fell down, and she stooped and picked it up, and her fingers moved as though they were being impelled to tear it in shreds. But she tossed it whole on to the table. She struck a match to light the lamp, but changed her mind and let the darkness creep on unrelieved. Ben Overleigh rode up half an hour afterwards, and found her thus. “I have come to tell you that the strike is over, and the train service begins to-morrow,” he said. “I have heard,” she said rigidly. “You must be glad to hear the news,” he said. “This time of waiting must have been very trying for you.” She did not answer. “And now at last you will be able to go home to your friends,” he said. She was silent. “I wanted to speak to you about the ranch,” he continued, a little nervously. “I have set my mind on buying the place, and carrying out Robert’s ideas. I hope you will give me the opportunity. If you look over his papers, you will find at what figure he valued his property. I only speak of it, because I thought that the certainty of being able to sell the ranch and receive money down at once, might make it all the easier for you, now that the line is open, to arrange your plans, and return home.” “Home?” she echoed, as though in sudden pain. Ben started.