THREE weeks before Christmas Gaston began to dream of the visit he was to make to Independence to see Sallie Worth. How long it seemed since she had kissed him in the twilight of that Pullman car and the Limited had rolled away bearing her further and further from his life! He would sit now for an hour reading her last letter, looking at her picture on his desk, and dreaming of what she would say when he sat by her side again in her own home. And then like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky came a tearful letter announcing another storm at home. Her father had again forbidden her to write. She said, at the last, that Gaston’s visit must be postponed indefinitely for the present. He gazed at the letter with a hardened look. “I _will_ go. I ’ll face General Worth in his own home, and demand his reasons for such treatment. I am a man I am entitled to the respect of a man.” He made this declaration with a quiet force that left no doubt about his doing it. He wrote Sallie that he could not and would not endure such a fight in the dark with the General, and that he was going to Independence on the day before Christmas as she had planned at first, to have it out with him face to face. She wrote in reply and begged him under no circumstances to come until conditions were more favourable. He got this letter the day before he was to start. “I ’ll go and I ’ll see him if I have to fight my way into his house, that’s all there is to it!” he exclaimed. When he reached Independence, St. Clare met him at the depot, and gave him an eager welcome. “I’ve been expecting you, you hard-headed fool!” he said impulsively. “Well, your words are not equal to your handshake. What’s the matter?” asked Gaston. “You know what’s the matter. Miss Sallie has been to see me this afternoon, and begged me to chain you at my house if you came to town to-day.” “Well, you ’ll need handcuffs, and help to get them on,” replied Gaston with quiet decision. “Look here, old boy, you’re not going down to that house to-night with the old man threatening to kill you on sight, and your girl bordering on collapse!” “I am. I’ve been bordering on collapse for some time myself. I’m getting used to it.” “You’re a fool.” “Granted, but I ’ll risk it.” “But, man, I tell you Miss Sallie will be furious with you if you go after all the messages she has sent you.” “I ’ll risk her fury too.” “Gaston, let me beg you not to do it.” “I’m going, Bob. It isn’t any use for you to waste your breath.” “You know where my heart is, old chum,” said Bob, yielding reluctantly. “I couldn’t go down to that house to-night under the conditions you are going for the world.” “Why not? It’s the manly thing to do.” “It’s a dangerous thing to do. Fathers have killed men under such conditions.” “Well, I ’ll risk it. I’m going as soon as I can brush up a little.” Bob walked with him to the outskirts of the city, begging in vain that he should turn back, but he never slacked his pace.