no use to him, but he was in a measure prompted by instincts born in him, for he was one of the Englishmen who, with a dim recognition of the primeval charge to subdue the earth and render it fruitful, gravitate to the newer lands, and usually leave their mark upon them.  He had also a half-defined notion that it would be something he could leave behind in reparation, that the men of Silverdale might remember more leniently the stranger who had imposed on them while in the strain of the mental struggle strenuous occupation was a necessity to him.

A bundle of papers it was now too dim to see lay beside him clammy with the dew, and he sat bare-headed, a pipe which had gone out in his hand, staring across the prairie with an ironical smile in his eyes.  He had planned boldly and striven tirelessly, and now the fee he could not take would surely be tendered him.  Wheat was growing dearer every day, and such crops as he had sown had not been seen at Silverdale.  Still, the man, who had had few compunctions before he met Maud Barrington, knew now that in a little while he must leave all he had painfully achieved behind.  What he would do then he did not know, for only one fact seemed certain—­in another four months, or less, he would have turned his back on Silverdale.

Presently, however, the sound of horse-hoofs caught his ears, and he stood up when a mounted figure rose out of the prairie.  The moon had just swung up, round and coppery, from behind a rise, and when horse and rider cut black and sharp against it his pulses throbbed faster and a little flush crept into his face, for he knew every line of the figure in the saddle.  Some minutes had passed when Maud Barrington rode slowly to the head of the bridge, and pulled up her horse at the sight of him.

The moon turning silver now shone behind her head, and a tress of hair sparkled beneath her wide hat, while the man had a glimpse of the gleaming whiteness of rounded cheek and neck.  Her face he could not see, but shapely shoulders, curve of waist, and sweeping line of the light habit were forced up as in a daguerreotype, and as the girl sat still looking down on him, slender, lissom, dainty, etherealized almost by the brightening radiance, she seemed to him a visionary complement of the harmonies of the night.  It also appeared wiser to think of her as such than a being of flesh and blood whom he had wildly ventured to long for, and he almost regretted when her first words dispelled the illusion.

“It is dreadfully late,” she said.  “Pluto went very lame soon after I left Macdonald’s, and I knew if I went back for another horse he would have insisted on riding home with me.  I had slipped away while he was in the granary.  One can cross the bridge?”

“Not mounted!” said Winston.  “There are only a few planks between the stringers here and there, but, if you don’t mind waiting, I can lead your horse across.”

He smiled a little, for the words seemed trivial and out of place in face of the effect the girl’s appearance had on him, but she glanced at him questioningly.