"Yes," said Hetty simply. "I am, at least, certain you think you are. Still, it may be a long and bitter while before we see this trouble through. I have done too much to-night--that is, had it been for anyone but you--and you will not make my duty too hard for me." Larry's pulses were throbbing furiously; but he had many times already checked the passionate outbreak that he knew would have banished any passing tenderness the girl had for him. "No, my dear," he said. "But the trouble can't last for ever, and when it is over you will come to me? I have been waiting--even when I felt it was hopeless--year after year for you." Hetty smiled gravely. "Whether I shall ever be able to do that, Larry, neither you nor I can tell; but at least I shall never listen to anyone else. That is all I can promise; and we must go on, each of us doing what is put before us, and hoping for the best." Larry swept off his fur cap, and, stooping, kissed her on the cheek. "It is the first time, Hetty. I will wait patiently for the next; but I shall see you now and then?" The girl showed as little sign of resentment as she did of passion. "If I meet you; but that must come by chance," she said. "I want you to think the best of me, and if the time should come, I know I would be proud of you. You have never done a mean thing since I knew you, Larry, and that means a good deal now." Grant pulled the team up in silence, and called to Breckenridge, who checked his horses and getting down looked straight in front of him as his comrade handed Hetty into her sleigh. Then they stood still, saying nothing while the team swept away. Hetty was also silent, though she drove furiously, and Flora Schuyler did not consider it advisable to ask any questions, while the rush of icy wind and rocking of the sleigh afforded scanty opportunity for conversation. She was also very cold, and greatly relieved, when a blink of light rose out of the snow. Five minutes later somebody handed her out of the sleigh, and she saw a man glance at the team. "You have been sending them along. Was it you or Hetty who drove, Miss Schuyler?" he said. Flora Schuyler laughed. "Hetty, of course; but I want you to remember when we came in," she said, mentioning when they left Cedar. "I told Mrs. Ashley we would get here inside an hour, and she wouldn't believe me." "If anyone wants to know when you came in, send them to me," said the man. "There are not many horses that could have made it in the time." XVIII A FUTILE PURSUIT Hetty's sleigh was sliding, a dim moving shadow, round a bend in the rise when Breckenridge touched his comrade, who stood gazing silently across the prairie. "It's abominably cold, Larry," he said, with a shiver. "Hadn't we better get on?" Grant said nothing as he took his place on the driving-seat, and the team had plodded slowly along the trail for at least five minutes before he spoke. "You heard what Miss Torrance told me?" he said.