“Why do you speak of them?” Alice begged.  “Why not forget them, as I have tried to do?”

“I do try, dear, but the play to-night brought everything back to me.  How strange that we should happen on that particular one so soon after your father and I had spoken of those years!  The ’Great Divide’—­God only knows the human agony and truth those words contain!”

Eleanor controlled herself before she continued.

“It is a story which I have told only once before, and I had not thought to take any one except your father into its sad confidences; but you should know it, dear.  My father’s health broke down after mother died, and he was ordered West in the hope of prolonging his life.  I was sixteen then, two years younger than you are now.  We went to Colorado, on a ranch which father had bought upon the recommendation of a friend.  How well I remember the first impressions I received of that glorious country:  the exhilaration of that wonderful air, the inspiration of those towering mountains, the novelty of the strange new conditions!  I rejoiced in the largeness of everything, and it seemed to me, those first few days, as though life amid these surroundings could but reflect the richness with which nature itself overflowed.”

Alice’s eyes were fixed upon Eleanor’s face with intense interest.  The girl sensed even in these preliminary words the importance of what was to follow, and was unwilling to lose a single syllable.  Eleanor caught the interest and sympathy of the girl’s face as she paused for a moment, and it gave her strength.

“Were you quite alone there?” Alice asked.

“Practically alone—­the nearest ranch was four miles from ours.  Naturally, we saw few people, the most constant visitor at this time being a young man who owned the ranch next to ours, who, during the year, had ridden over to see us with increasing frequency.  His name was Ralph Buckner, and he seemed to us to be a characteristic product of the West—­with his large frame, bluff manners, and frank, open countenance.  We all liked him, and the fact that he differed so much from the Eastern men I had known perhaps caused me to show a greater interest in him than I really felt.  At all events, no girl was ever more genuinely surprised by an offer of marriage than I was, when it came unexpectedly one day, with that determination back of it to secure what he desired which was a part of the man himself.  I did manage to collect my senses long enough to insist that I have time to think the matter over—­for I had no idea of marrying him; but, much to my surprise, father approved the idea from the moment I told him of the proposal.  Then it developed that Ralph had already approached him on the subject.  Father, poor dear, thought only of my future and what he believed would be my happiness.  It was so evident that I held in my hands the solution of his most serious problem that he never knew the misgivings I felt from the first.  He could live on at the ranch for the present, busying himself with the work which kept him out-of-doors; then later, if he preferred, he could come and live with us.”