“Why did you never write me?” he asked gently. “I don’t know. I couldn’t. Don’t ask me to explain. It was just that I—I felt I must come back to you as I had come to you first, unexpected and without a word. Can you understand?” “No,” he said. “No; I suppose not. A man couldn’t.” “Good God!” he burst out. “Do you realize what it is to live in such a hell of uncertainty and longing as I’ve lived in since you left; to wait, and hope, and lose hope, and hope and wait again for a word that never comes; to eat your heart out with waiting?” A slow wonderful smile trembled on her lips. “My dear,” she said; “I have waited for you all my life.” Suddenly her arms were around him; her cheek was pressed to his own; the breath of her whisper was at his ear. “Oh, forgive me! I will make it up to you, my dear; my dearest!” Out in the wind and the rain Chester Kent drew in the deep breath of satisfied and rounded achievement. He had beheld, against the wide window-shade two shadows, which, standing motionless for a moment, a few feet apart, had drawn slowly together as by some irresistible magnetism, and suddenly merged into one. The unintentional eavesdropper nodded, in grave gratulation to the house, then turned away. “Finished!” he said. “_C’est conclu. Finis. Telos. Das Ende._ And any or all other words of whatever language, meaning a sound conclusion!” Half an hour later he entered, with due preliminary stamping of mud from clogged feet. Instantly Marjorie went over to him. “Why, you’re wet as a rag!” she cried with a sweetly unconscious assumption of proprietary interest. “You must go and change at once!” she added, patting his shoulder. Kent reached for his ear, changed his mind midway, and scratched his nose. “All right,” he said meekly. Over his rather stern-set face there came a singularly winning smile. “You two—” he said: “that’s as it should be. That’s worth everything.” “No other congratulations will ever sound so good as that, Chet,” said Sedgwick in a low voice; “or so unselfish. You’ve had all the heat and toil of the great game, and I have all the happiness.” “Not quite all, I fancy,” returned Kent, smiling at Marjorie. She took his wet hand between her own. “But it doesn’t seem quite fair,” she protested. “Frank and I have found each other. But you, who have fought our battle for us so splendidly, what reward do you have?” Chester Kent shook his head. “My dear,” he said gently, “the great game isn’t played for prizes.” THE END ———— STORIES OF WESTERN LIFE _May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap’s List_ RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE. By Zane Gray. Illustrated by Douglas Duer. In this picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago, we are permitted to see the unscrupulous methods employed by the invisible hand of the Mormon Church to break the will of those refusing to conform to its rule.