lifting a tumbler and looking through it at him as though to see if the
glass was properly polished.

Mona was mystified. At first she thought there had been oblique
references to her husband, but these remarks about marriage would
certainly exclude him. Yet, would they exclude him? During the time in
which Shiel's history was not known might there not have been--but no,
it could not have been so, for it was Kitty who had sent the letter which
had brought her to Askatoon.

"Are you to be married--soon?" she asked of Kitty, with a friendly yet
trembling smile, for her agitation was, despite appearances, troubling
every nerve.

"I've thought of it quite lately," responded Kitty calmly, seating
herself now and looking straight into the eyes of the woman, who was
suggesting more truth than she knew.

"May I congratulate you? Am I justified on such slight acquaintance?
I am sure you have chosen wisely," was the smooth rejoinder.

Kitty did not shrink from looking Mona in the eyes. "It isn't quite time
for congratulations yet, and I'm not sure I've chosen wisely. My family
very strongly disapproves. I can't help that, of course, and I may have
to elope and take the consequences."

"It takes two to elope," interposed the Young Doctor, who thought that
Kitty, in her humorous extravagance, was treading very dangerous ground
indeed. He was thinking of Crozier and Kitty; but Kitty was thinking of
Crozier, and meaning John Sibley. Somehow she could not help playing