followed which sent the tide surging back to her heart, and left her
cold and faint. She remembered that this knowledge was a trust. That
she had given her word not to betray it. With instant recoil, she
leaped to the thought that advising her lover to redeem these meadows
was not betraying the secret. Like a swift shuttle flew her mind
between argument and defence, between temptation and resistance,
between love and duty.

"Why, what is it, Milly?" John demanded, starting up and coming to her.
"What in the world makes you act so funny? Are you sick? Why don't you
speak?"

It is not easy to express the force of the struggle which went on in
poor Milly's mind. It seemed to her at that moment as if all the hopes
of her life were set against her honesty. The material issues in any
conflict between principle and inclination are of less importance than
the desire which they represent. The few thousand dollars involved in
the redemption of the Stanton meadows was little when compared to the
magnificent scheme of which this would be a mere trifling accident, but
the sum represented all the desires of Milly Blake's life, while over
against it stood all her faith, her honesty, and her religion.

For an instant she wavered, standing as if by some spell suddenly
arrested, with arms half extended. Then she flung down the paper and
threw herself upon her lover's breast with a burst of tears.

"Why, Milly," he said, soothingly. "Milly, Milly."

He was unused to feminine vagaries. His betrothed was of the outwardly
quiet order of women, and an outburst like this was incomprehensible to