And so the days dragged on. I kept a corner of my south window rubbed clear of frost so that I might maintain a look-out for a visit from Spoof, for although he was my rival, or because he was my rival, I felt that I had with Spoof something very much in common. But Spoof seemed suddenly to have discontinued his visits to Fourteen and Twenty-two, and for the first time in that winter the trail to his shack was entirely over-blown and obliterated in a waste of snow. Jack came over every day, and Marjorie and Jean came two or three times a week and gave my shack the womanly touches of which it was beginning to stand in need, but Jean never came alone. I began to understand that the prairies give solitude without privacy; if one seeks privacy he goes to the city for it. In this way a couple of weeks had passed when one evening it occurred to me that I could kill a dull hour or two, and discharge a somewhat neglected filial duty, by writing a letter to my father. Investigation proved, what I greatly suspected, that I had no writing paper, so I went over to Jack's to borrow some. They had none either, but Jack produced an old account book with some blank sheets in it, which we decided would do quite well. In those days we weren't particular about stationery. Jean was in her room while I was there, and did not come out, so in a few minutes I returned to Fourteen. There I set the lamp on the table and spread the old account book out before me. It once had been owned by Jack's father; the first pages were filled with items which apparently had to do with the purchase of the Lane farm, and with Mr. Lane's services in the woolen mill. I glanced over them with casual interest and as I did so a loose slip fell from the pages. I picked it up from the floor and found a number of lines in Jean's handwriting: When through the livelong day I sigh And ponder on my sad estate, I would my Nemesis defy And burst the bounding cords of Fate. Now would I tear each bond away; Now would I risk your sad reproof; Come, let us live and love who may: Come to me . . . Spoof. "So it has come to that," I said to myself. "Love-sick doggerel!" I crushed the sheet of paper in my hand in a rage, even while a hot flush of color ran up my face at the realization of the fact that I had read something never intended for my eyes--for _my_ eyes least of all. So she could tear the bonds away; she could risk his "sad reproof"; she could do anything but find words to fill out the feet of the last line. "Come to me . . . Spoof!" With a sudden stabbing at my heart the question interrogated me, Could Jean be ingenious enough to use those dots, after the manner of our modern writers, to suggest something which she shrank from saying in plain English? Here will I use some of them myself . . . CHAPTER XX.