I believe he never once told Jessamine the body could not travel so far as Kentucky. I think he let her live and talk and grieve from hour to hour, and then led her that afternoon to the nook of sunlight and sheltering trees, and won her consent to it thus; for there was Nate laid, and there she went to sit, alone. Lin did not go with her on those walks. But now something new was on the fellow's mind. He was plainly occupied with it, whatever else he was doing, and he had some active cattle-work. On my asking him if Jessamine Buckner had decided when to return east, he inquired of me, angrily, what was there in Kentucky she could not have in Wyoming? Consequently, though I surmised what he must be debating, I felt myself invited to keep out of his confidence, and I did so. My advice to him would have been ill received, and--as was soon to be made plain--would have done his delicacy injustice. Next, one morning he and Billy were gone. My first thought was that he had rejoined Jessamine at Mrs. Pierce's, where she was, and left me away over here on Bear Creek, where we had come for part of a week. But stuck in my hat-band I found a pencilled farewell. Now Mr. McLean constructed perhaps three letters in the year--painful, serious events--like an interview with some important person with whom your speech must decorously flow. No matter to whom he was writing, it froze all nature stiff in each word he achieved; and his bald business diction and wild archaic penmanship made documents that I value among my choicest correspondence; this one, especially: “Wensday four a. m. “DEAR SIR this is to Inform you that i have gone to Separ on important bisness where i expect to meet you on your arrival at same point. You will confer a favor and oblidge undersigned by Informing Miss J. Buckner of date (if soon) you fix for returning per stage to Separ as Miss J. Buckner may prefer company for the trip being long and poor accommodations. “Yours &c. L. McLEAN.” This seemed to point but one way; and (uncharitable though it sound) that this girl, so close upon bereavement, should be able to give herself to a lover was distasteful to me. But, most extraordinary, Lin had gone away without a word to her, and she was left as plainly in the dark as myself. After her first frank surprise at learning of his departure, his name did not come again from her lips, at any rate to me. Good Mrs. Pierce dropped a word one day as to her opinion of men who deceive women into expecting something from them. “Let us talk straight,” said I. “Do you mean that Miss Buckner says that, or that you say it?” “Why, the poor thing says nothing!” exclaimed the lady. “It's like a man to think she would. And I'll not say anything, either, for you're all just the same, except when you're worse; and that Lin McLean is going to know what I think of him next time we meet.”