"Of course not! He never did, for that matter. 'Twas only the fancy of a moment. Why, Frank, Ned never cared for me--that way!" "_Ned!_" The tone and the one word were enough. For one moment Margaret gazed into the man's face with startled eyes; then she turned and covered her own telltale face with her hands--and because it was a telltale face, Spencer took a long stride toward her. "Margaret! And did you think it was Ned I was pleading for, when all the while it was I who was hungering for you with a love that sent me across the seas to rid myself of it? Did you, Margaret?" There was no answer. "Margaret, look at me--let me see your eyes!" There was a note of triumphant joy in his voice now. Still no answer. "Margaret, it did not go--that love. It stayed with me day after day, and month after month, and it only grew stronger and deeper until there was nothing left me in all this world but you--just you. And now--Margaret, my Margaret," he said softly and very tenderly. "You _are_ my Margaret!" And his arms closed about her. CHAPTER XLI In spite of protests and pleadings Margaret spent the winter abroad. "As if I'd stay here and flaunt my happiness in poor Bobby's face!" she said indignantly to her lover. Neither would she consent to a formal engagement. Even Mrs. Merideth and Ned were not to know. "It is to be just as it was before," she had declared decidedly, "only--well, you may write to me," she had conceded. "I refuse to stay here and--and be just happy--_yet_! I've been unkind and thoughtless, and have brought sorrow to my dear good friend. I'm going away. I deserve it--and Bobby deserves it, too!" And in spite of Frank Spencer's efforts to make her see matters in a different light, she still adhered to her purpose. All through the long winter Frank contented himself with writing voluminous letters, and telling her of the plans he was making to "divvy up" at the mills, as he always called it. "I shall make mistakes, of course, dear," he wrote. "It is a big problem--altogether more so than perhaps you realize. Of course the mills must still be a business--not a philanthropy; otherwise we should defeat our own ends. But I shall have your clear head and warm heart to aid me, and little by little we shall win success. "Already I have introduced two or three small changes to prepare the way for the larger ones later on. Even Ned is getting interested, and seems to approve of my work, somewhat to my surprise, I will own. I'm thinking, however, that I'm not the only one in the house, sweetheart, to whom you and your unselfishness have shown the 'better way.'" Month by month the winter passed, and spring came, bringing Mrs. Merideth, but no Margaret. "She has stopped to visit friends in New York," explained Mrs. Merideth, in reply to her brother's anxious questions. "She may go on west with them. She said she would write you."