Elinor rose and stood with clasped hands beside her mother's chair; a very pitiful and stricken half-sister of the self-reliant, dependable young woman who had boasted herself the head of the household. "I have no means of knowing what he has done," she said slowly. "But I know the man. He has turned back." There was a tap at the door and a servant was come to say that Mr. Brookes Ormsby was waiting with his auto-car. Was Miss Brentwood nearly ready? Elinor said, "In a minute," and when the door closed, she made a confidante of her mother for the first time since her childhood days. "I know what you have suspected ever since that summer in New Hampshire, and it is true," she confessed. "I do love him--as much as I dare to without knowing whether he cares for me. Must I--may I--say yes to Brookes Ormsby without telling him the whole truth?" "Oh, my dear! You couldn't do that!" was the quick reply. "You mean that I am not strong enough? But I am; and Mr. Ormsby is manly enough and generous enough to meet me half-way. Is there any other honest thing to do, mother?" Mrs. Hepzibah shook her head deliberately and determinedly, though she knew she was shaking the Ormsby millions into the abyss of the unattainable. "No; it is his just due. But I can't help being sorry for him, Ellie. What will you do if he says it doesn't make any difference?" The blue-gray eyes were downcast. "I don't know. Having asked so much, and accepted so much from him--it shall be as he says, mother." The afternoon had been all that a summer afternoon on the brown highlands can be, and the powerful touring car had swept them from mile to mile over the dun hills like an earth-skimming dragon whose wing-beat was the muffled, explosive thud of the motor. Through most of the miles Elinor had given herself up to silent enjoyment of the rapture of swift motion, and Ormsby had respected her mood, as he always did. But when they were on the high hills beyond the mining-camp of Megilp, and he had thrown the engines out of gear to brake the car gently down the long inclines, there was room for speech. "This is our last spin together on the high plains, I suppose," he said. "Your mother has fixed upon to-morrow for our return to town, hasn't she?" Elinor confirmed it half-absently. She had been keyed up to face the inevitable in this drive with Ormsby, and she was afraid now that he was going to break her resolution by a dip into the commonplaces. "Are you glad or sorry?" he asked. Her reply was evasive. "I have enjoyed the thin, clean air and the freedom of the wide horizons. Who could help it?" "But you have not been entirely happy?" It was on her lips to say some conventional thing about the constant jarring note in all human happiness, but she changed it to a simple "No." "May I try if I can give the reason?" She made a reluctant little gesture of assent; some such signal of acquiescence as Marie Antoinette may have given the waiting headsman.