Yet with all our free, frank talk, there was all the while that in her
gentle courtesy which kept me from venturing into any chamber of her
life whose door she did not set freely open to me. So I vexed myself
about her, and when Mr. Craig returned the next week from the Landing
where he had been for some days, my first question was--

'Who is Mrs. Mavor? And how in the name of all that is wonderful and
unlikely does she come to be here? And why does she stay?'

He would not answer then; whether it was that his mind was full of the
coming struggle, or whether he shrank from the tale, I know not; but
that night, when we sat together beside his fire, he told me the story,
while I smoked. He was worn with his long, hard drive, and with the
burden of his work, but as he went on with his tale, looking into the
fire as he told it, he forgot all his present weariness and lived again
the scenes he painted for me. This was his story:--

'I remember well my first sight of her, as she sprang from the front
seat of the stage to the ground, hardly touching her husband's hand. She
looked a mere girl. Let's see--five years ago--she couldn't have been a
day over twenty three. She looked barely twenty. Her swift glance swept
over the group of miners at the hotel door, and then rested on the
mountains standing in all their autumn glory.

'I was proud of our mountains that evening. Turning to her husband, she
exclaimed: "O Lewis, are they not grand? and lovely, too?" Every miner
lost his heart then and there, but all waited for Abe the driver to give
his verdict before venturing an opinion. Abe said nothing until he had
taken a preliminary drink, and then, calling all hands to fill up, he
lifted his glass high, and said solemnly--