"And you don't mean to tell me you were such a fool as to say he might go?" J. P. Thornton, walking up the hill for the fourth time on the way home from a session meeting with Lawyer Ed, asked the question again in an of indignation.  
And Lawyer Ed answered as he had done each time before:
 
"I couldn't stand in the boy's way, ; I just couldn't."
 
They had argued the question for an hour, up and down the hills between their two homes, and had come to no agreement. That Roderick had had an offer to any young man there was no doubt. A in the firm of Elliot and Kent, for the British North American Transcontinental Railroad, was such a chance as came the way of few at his age.
 
And yet Mr. Thornton declared that he should have refused it . Not so Lawyer Ed; his generous heart the boy.
 
"It's the chance of a life-time, Jack," he declared. "It would be to keep him out of it, and, mind you, he wouldn't say he would go until I urged it."
 
"Oh, blow him!" J. P. was a very gentleman and did not to his boyhood's slang except under extreme . "He shouldn't have allowed you to urge him. And what about the brilliant you gave up once just because his father was in need?"
 
"Well, never mind that," said Lawyer Ed, hurriedly. "He doesn't know anything about that and he's not going to either."
 
"And it was Bill Graham who wanted you, and you wouldn't go. And now Bill's taking him away from you. He ought to be ashamed!"
 
"Bill thought he was doing me a kindness. He knew Rod's success is mine."
 
J. P. was silent from sheer of all argument. He was grieved and bitterly disappointed for his friend's sake. Ed was in need of a rest and just when life was looking a little easier to him, and the long-deferred holiday was within reach, Roderick was deserting.
 
If they could only have visited the Holy Land before he left, it would not have seemed so bad. But though Roderick had consented to remain until his chief returned, Lawyer Ed had felt he could not go, for he must busy himself up the threads of his work which he had been dropping with such relief.
 
Roderick had not come to his final decision without much argument with himself. His head said Go, but he could not quite convince his heart that he was right in leaving Lawyer Ed so soon. He had argued the question with himself during many nights, but the of success had proved the stronger. And he was going late in the autumn to take up his new work.
 
To Old Angus the news was like the shutting out of the light of day. Roderick was going away. At first that was all he could comprehend. But he did not for one moment lose his faith either in his boy or in his God. The Lord's hand was in it all, he told himself. He was leading the Lad out into larger service and his father must not stand in the way. He said not one word of his own loss, but was deeply concerned over Lawyer Ed's. He was worried lest the Lad's going might mean business difficulties for his friend.
 
"If the Father will be wanting the Lad, Edward," he said one golden autumn afternoon, when Lawyer Ed stopped at the farm gate in passing, "then we must not be putting our little wills in His way. I would not be minding for myself, oh, no, not at all—" the old man's smile was more pathetic than tears. "The dear Lord will be giving me so many children on the Jericho Road, that He feels I can spare Roderick."
 
Eddie Perkins was stumbling about the lane trying to rake up the dead leaves into neat piles as Angus had instructed him. He came whimpering up with a finger which he held up to the old man. Angus comforted him tenderly, telling him Eddie must be a man and not mind a little scratch. He looked down at this most helpless of his children and gently stroked the boy's misshapen head.
 
"Yes, He would be very kind, giving me so many of His little ones to care for, and He feels I can spare Roderick. The Lad is strong—" his voice a moment, but he went on bravely.
 
"But it was you I was thinking of, Edward. I could not but be fearing that you were making a great sacrifice. There is your visit to the Holy Land—and the business. It will be hard for you, Edward?"
 
Lawyer Ed, seated in his mud-splashed buggy at the gate, turned quickly away, the anxiety in Old Angus's voice was almost too much for his tender heart. There was a wistful plea in it that he should Roderick from a shadow of suspicion. He jerked his horse's head violently and demanded angrily what in thunder it meant by trying to eat all the grass off the roadside like a fool of an old cow, and then he rose to the Lad's defence.
 
"Hut, tut, Angus!" he cried blusteringly. "Such nonsense! You know as well as I do that the Lad didn't want to leave. I fairly drove him away. Pshaw! never mind the Holy Land. We're all journeying to it together, anyway. And as for my business—somebody else'll turn up. I always felt Algonquin would be too small for Rod. You'll see he'll make a name for himself that'll make us all proud."
 
He did it splendidly, and Angus was comforted. He blamed himself for what he termed his lack of faith in the boy and in his Father. And many a night, as he sat late by his fire, trying to reason himself into cheerful resignation, he recalled Edward's words hopefully. Yes, he surely ought to be proud and glad that the Lad was going out into a wider service. He was leaving him alone, on his Jericho Road, here, but that was only because the Father needed him for a busier highway, where thieves were crueller and more numerous.
 
As the autumn passed and the time for leaving approached, the Lad ran out very often to the farm. His visits were a constantly increasing source of discomfort—both to heart and conscience. His father's attempts at cheerfulness, and his sublime assurance that his son was going away to do a greater work for the Master stung Roderick to the quick. That Master, whom he had long ago left out of his life's plan, had said, "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." And from even the little Roderick had seen of the affairs of Elliot and Kent, he knew only too well that to serve that firm and humanity at the same time would be impossible.
 
There were others who did not possess his father's faith in his purpose, and they to him plainly on the matter. J. P. Thornton, remembering indignantly all that Lawyer Ed had once given up for Old Angus's sake, and further maddened by being forbidden to disclose it, expressed his of Roderick's leaving so soon, in strong terms.
 
His remarks succeeded only in angering the young man, and making him more in his course. Doctor Leslie was the next to speak plainly on the matter, and his , deep-searching words were harder to set aside. Roderick was passing the Manse one day when Mammy Viney hailed him.
 
"Honey, de minesta' want you," she called, in her soft rich tones. "An' you'se gwine away, an' leavin' you ole Auntie Kirsty," she said reproachfully, as he came up the steps and shook hands with her.
 
"But you wouldn't want me to stay and bother Aunt Kirsty in the kitchen all my life, now, would you, Mammy Viney? I thought men were a nuisance there."
 
"Men's jus' a trouble eberywhar," she said sternly. "Dat Mahogany Bill he was jus' like all de res', an' here you doin' de same, goin' off an' leabin' folks in de , with all de hard work to do. I'se shame of you—dat I is!"
 
Roderick laughed good-naturedly, as he followed her into the house, but Mammy Viney tossed her head. "Eberybody say dat it pretty mean o' you, anyhow," she said with the air of one who could tell a great deal if she wished. "'Deed dey's sayin' dat you no business make Lawya Ed stay home!"
 
Roderick did not wait to hear any more of what Algonquin was saying about him. Mammy Viney rather enjoyed recounting such remarks, and never took one or one tittle from that which she passed along.
 
Doctor Leslie met him at the study door, with outstretched hands. "Now tell me all about this going away scheme," he said; and Roderick told him eagerly, about the brilliant ahead of him, and when he finished there was the implied question in the boy's eyes. Would he not be blind to his and every one's best interests to remain in Algonquin in the face of such inducements?
 
Doctor Leslie sat and looked out at the trees, with their wealth of red and gold apples falling with soft thuds upon the grass. How often had that question come to him in his youth, and when he had examined his own heart and his reasons for obeying the call to go away, he had been compelled to remain.
 
He saw Roderick's position, and sympathised with the youthful to be away and to do great deeds; but he was afraid the way had not yet truly opened up into which Angus McRae's son could step. He had learned, in the year Roderick had spent in Algonquin, that the young man was not vitally interested in the things that are eternal. His outlook on life was not his father's. The minister felt to speak plainly.
 
"I feel sure," he said slowly, turning his eyes from the garden, and letting them rest kindly upon the boy's frank face, "I feel sure, Roderick, that no young man who lacks ambition will be of much use to the world. But ambition is a dangerous guide alone. If you are anxious to make the best of your life, my boy, the Lord will open the way to great opportunities. But the time and the way will be plainly shown. If this is a door of greater opportunity, then enter it, and God give you great and large . But if you are leaving with any doubts as to its being the right course, if you fear that there are other obligations you must yet fulfil, then I charge you to examine your heart carefully, lest you fight against God. It is no use trying to do that. One day or other His love will hedge us about. If it cannot draw us into the way it meets us on the Damascus Road and blinds us with its light. But some of us miss the best of life before that happens. Don't lose the way, Lad; your father instructed you well in it."
 
For days the warning followed Roderick, him. He dared not examine his carefully, lest he find them false. He was out on life's waters, paddling hard for the gleam of gold, and he had no time to stop and consider whither it was leading him. It might vanish while he lingered.
 
There was another person whose opinion he was anxious to get on this question. He wondered every waking hour what she would think of his going. Perhaps she didn't think about it at all, he speculated . He still continued to her in Lane, as he went to and from home, and one evening he ran upon his poor rival, Afternoon Tea Willie, doing the same sentinel duty.
 
Roderick had been home for supper and was returning to the office early to do some left over work, when he overtook him slowly walking towards Algonquin.
 
"Good evening, Mr. Roderick," he said in a tone. "May I walk into town with you?"
 
Roderick slackened his stride to suit the young man. He was rather impatient at having to endure his company, but he soon changed his mind, for Alfred was in a mood.
 
"I might as well go home," he said gloomily. "She's gone."
 
"Who's gone?" asked Roderick .
 
"Why, Miss Murray. She slipped away somehow, and I don't know how she did it. But I've waited down here for her for the last time." He choked for a moment, then continued firmly. "She's showed me plainly she doesn't want me, and I'm too proud to force my company upon her."
 
Roderick did not know what to say; he wanted to laugh, but it was impossible to keep just a little of the fellow-feeling that makes us kind from creeping into his heart.
 
"Well, it's too bad," he said at last. "But if she doesn't want you, of course there is only one thing for you to do."
 
"I have been faithful to her for a year," said the rejected lover. "I never before was to any lady, no matter how charming, for that length of time, and she needn't have treated me that way."
 
The subject was the most interesting one in the world to Roderick, and he could not resist encouraging the young man to go on.
 
And poor Afternoon Tea Willie, unaccustomed to a sympathetic hearing, poured out all his long heartache.
 
"I am telling you this in strict confidence you know, Roderick," he said. "It is such a relief to tell some one and it seems right I should tell you the end of this sad romance, for you helped me and were kind to me at its very beginning." He paused for a moment, to reflect sadly on his disappointed hopes.
 
"You may be sure your confidence will never be betrayed," said Roderick, and murmuring his the young man went on.
 
"It was Miss Annabel Armstrong who put her against me from the first, I feel sure, though I must never bear a against a lady. But you know, Roderick (I know you will never betray a confidence), Miss Annabel hates me. I proposed to her once, shortly after I came to Algonquin. It was just a mad infatuation on my part, not love at all. I did not know then what real love was. But Miss Annabel—well, she is a lady—but I, I really couldn't tell you what she said to me when I offered her all a man could, my heart and my hand and all my property. It was awful! I really sometimes wake up in the night yet and think about it. And she never forgave me. And I don't know why." He paused and drew a deep breath at the remembrance.
 
"And I know she poisoned Miss Murray's mind against me—but I shan't hold a grudge against a lady. Now, Miss Murray herself was so gentle and kind when she refused me—what? I—I didn't mean any harm." For his sympathetic listener had turned upon him.
 
"How dared you do such a thing?" Roderick cried indignantly.
 
"I just couldn't help it," Alfred. "You couldn't yourself now, Roderick;" and Roderick was forced to confess inwardly that likely he couldn't.
 
"Well, never mind, go on," he said, all unabashed that he was taking advantage of the poor young man merely to be able to hear something about her.
 
"I just couldn't help it. But I only asked her twice and the first time she refused so nicely, I thought perhaps she'd change her mind. I never heard any one refuse a—person—so—so sweetly and kindly. But this last time was unmistakable, and I feel as if it were all over. I am not going to be upon any more."
 
"That's right," said Roderick. "Just up and never mind; you'll soon get over it."
 
The young man shook his head. "I shall never be the same," he said. "But I have pride. I am not going to let her see that she has made a of my life. But I thought she might have had more sympathy when she had had a sorrow like that herself."
 
Roderick felt his rising. He did not mind listening to poor Alfred's love stories, but he did not want to hear hers discussed. But before he could interrupt, Alfred was saying something that held his attention and made him long for more.
 
"But she is all over that now. She told me herself."
 
"All over what?" Roderick could not hold the question back.
 
"Caring about the young man she was engaged to. There was a young man named Richard Wells in Toronto, you know, and they were engaged. When she was away for her holidays last summer, I was so lonesome I just couldn't stand it, so I wrote to my cousin Flossy Wilbur and asked her to find out how she was or her address or something. And Flossy wrote such a comforting letter and said she was staying with her married brother, Norman Murray—he lives on Harrington Street, and Floss lives just a couple of blocks away on a beautiful avenue—"
 
"What were you saying about Wells?" Roderick interrupted.
 
"Flossy knows him and told me all about it. I had a letter just last week. He met another girl he liked better—no, that couldn't be true, nobody who once saw her could care for any one else, I am sure. But this other girl was rich, and so he broke the engagement. If I ever meet that man!" Afternoon Tea Willie stood on the side-walk, the electric light shining through the autumn leaves making a golden radiance about his white face. "If I ever meet that man I—I shall certainly treat him with the coldest contempt, Roderick. I wouldn't speak to him!"
 
"But you said she didn't care," suggested Roderick impatiently.
 
"Not now. But Flossy said her poor little heart must have been broken at first, though she did not show it. She came up to Algonquin right away. I saw her on board the Inverness the day she came and I knew then—"
 
"How do you know she doesn't care about Wells?"
 
"Oh, when Flossy wrote me that last week, I went to see her at the school—I don't dare go to Rosemount—and I asked her to forgive me for proposing to her. I told her, or at least I hinted at the tragedy in her life, and I said I wanted to beg her pardon on my knees for troubling her as I had done,—and that I couldn't forgive myself. Oh, she just acted like an angel—there is no other word to describe her. She asked me at first how I found out and then she said so sweetly and gently, that she thanked me for my consideration. And then, just because she was so good—I did it again! I really didn't mean it, but before I knew what I was doing, I was asking her again if there was any hope for me. And, oh dear! oh dear! she said 'no' again. Gave me not the least hope. I was so overcome—you don't know how a man feels about such things, Roderick. I was so overcome I burst out and said I felt just as if I would have given all I to meet that Wells man. I said I could just treat him with the coldest contempt if I ever met him on the street. And she answered so sweetly that I must not worry on her account. She said she had cared once, but that was all over, and that she was glad now that it had been so. And she added—and I don't see any one with such eyes could be so cruel—she said I must never, never speak of such a subject to her again, and that if I ever did she would not let me even come near her. So it's all over with me. I am not going to follow her about any more. I have still been coming down to Willow Lane, but I am coming no more after to-night. This is the end!"
 
They had reached the office door and paused. Roderick's sympathy seemed to have suddenly vanished. In the very face of the other young man's despair, he turned upon him ruthlessly.
 
"That's a wise resolution, Alf," he said distinctly. "And I'm going to advise you strongly to stick to it. You keep the width of the town between you and Miss Murray from now on, do you understand?"
 
"What—whatever do you mean?" the boy, aghast at the cruelty of one who had seemed a friend.
 
"Just what I say. On your own showing, you've been tormenting her; and—I—well, I won't have it—that's all. I feel sure you have the good sense to stick to your resolution," his tone was a trifle kindlier, "and for your own sake I hope you do. If not, look out!" He made a significant gesture, that made the other jump out of his way in terror. "And look here, Alf," he added. "If you tell any soul in Algonquin that Miss Murray was engaged to any one I'll—I'll murder you. Do you hear?"
 
He ran up the steps and into the office. And the cruellest part of it all to poor Afternoon Tea Willie, as the door slammed in his face leaving him alone in the darkness, was that he could hear his false friend whistling merrily.
 
Roderick felt like whistling in the days that followed. He had found out something he had been longing to know for over a year. He did not have to stay away from her now. And the very next evening he marched straight up to Rosemount and asked to see Miss Murray. She was out, much to his disappointment, but the next Sunday he met her as they were leaving the church. And she expressed her regret so kindly that he was once more filled with hope. He had stood watching for her while his father paused for a word with Dr. Leslie, but as usual he had been joined by Alexander Graham and his daughter. There was a subtle air of triumph about the man, ever since Roderick had to go to Montreal, an air almost of especially noticeable when Lawyer Ed was about.
 
"Good morning, Rod," he said . "All packed yet?"
 
"Not quite," said Roderick shortly. He , for the thought of the actual parting with his father was a subject upon which he did not care to speak.
 
"I don't believe you are a bit sorry you are going," said Leslie, shaking the heavy of her hat at him, and , for never a regret had he expressed to her.
 
"I actually believe you're glad. And I don't blame you. I'd be just jumping for joy if I were going. It's a dreadfully dull little place here, in the winter especially."
 
He looked at her in surprise. It was so unlike her to express discontent. She had always seemed so happy. "Why, I thought you couldn't be ever induced to live any other place," he cried in surprise.
 
"The idea! I wish somebody'd try me!" she flashed out the answer, with just the faintest emphasis on a significant word.
 
Roderick looked down at her again in wonder, to see her eyes , her colour deepen. They passed down the church steps, side by side; her father dropped behind with Dr. Blair, and they were left alone together. Roderick, always shy in a young woman's presence, was overcome with a vague feeling of dismay, which he did not at all understand and which rendered him speechless.
 
He was relieved when Miss Annabel Armstrong, with a girlish skip, came suddenly to her niece's side. "Good morning, Mr. Roderick McRae. Good morning, niecy dear! Come here a moment and walk with me, Leslie darling. I want to ask you something." She slipped her arm into the girl's and drew her back. "Here, Mr. McRae, you walk by Miss Murray, just for a moment, please."
 
She shoved Helen forward into Leslie's place, and pulling her niece close, whispered fiercely.
 
"You are a young idiot, Leslie Graham! I heard Mrs. Captain Willoughby and the Baldwin girls laughing and talking about you just this minute as they came out of church. I am just deadly ashamed. How can we ever keep our position in society if you act so? Anna Baldwin said you were simply throwing yourself at that young McRae's head—and his father a common farmer! And his Aunt!"
 
The girl jerked her arm from Miss Annabel's grasp, her eyes and cheeks blazing. "Anna Baldwin is crazy about him herself!" she cried violently. "And she's made a fool of herself more times than I can tell! And his father is far better than your father ever was, or mine either!" She stopped as some one looked at her in passing. "I shall just do exactly as I please, Aunt Annabel Armstrong," she added . "It's just like an old maid to be always in other people's affairs!"
 
Miss Annabel turned white with anger. She was proud of her niece, and yet she almost disliked her. Leslie, young and gay and successful, the inheritor of everything for which her aunt had scrimped and striven and hungered all her life and never , was a constant source of and discontent to Miss Annabel. Her heart and hopes were as young as Leslie's, and she was forced to find herself pushed aside into the place of age, while this radiant girl walked all unheeding into everything that her girlhood should have been. And this intimation concerning her age and estate was . She grew intensely quiet.
 
"Leslie," she said, "you may me or not as you wish. But if you had eyes in your head, you would see for yourself that that young man doesn't care the snap of his finger for you and all your money. He's madly in love with Helen Murray. He's always hanging about Rosemount!" she added, growing reckless. "He was there only last night. Just look at him now!"
 
The startled eyes of the girl obeyed. Roderick was walking beside Helen Murray, and looking down at her with the joy of her presence shining in his face. He was not schooled in hiding his feelings, and his eyes told his secret so plainly that Leslie Graham could not but read.
 
She said not another word. They had reached a corner and she suddenly left her aunt and walked swiftly homeward alone. She had had a revelation. For a long time she had suspected and feared. Now she knew. In all her gay thoughtless life she had never wanted anything very badly that she had not been able to get. Now, the one thing she wanted most, the thing which had all unconsciously become the desire of her life, she had learned in one flash was already another's. She was as certain of it as though Roderick had proclaimed his feelings from the church pulpit. Her thoughts ran swiftly back over the months of their acquaintance and picked up here and there little items of remembrance that should have shown her earlier the true state of things. She was forced to confess that not once had he shown her any slightest preference, except as her father's daughter. And yet she had refused to look and listen. And then, upon knowledge, came shame and and rage at finding she had boldly herself and was found . It was the birth of her woman's heart. The happy, careless girl's heart was dying, and the new life did not come without much of soul.
 
As soon as she could escape from the dinner table she fled to her room to face this thing which had come upon her. All undisciplined and unused to pain, through her mother's careless indulgence, pagan, too, for her religious experience had been but one of form, the girl met this crisis in her life alone.
 
At first the smarting sense of her humiliation predominated and her heart cried for recompense. She would show him what would happen If he dared set her aside. Well she knew she could injure Roderick's chances for success if she set her mind to the task; for was it not her influence that had helped to give him those chances?
 
The force of her anger drove her to action. She threw on her hat and her velvet coat, and slipping out unseen, walked swiftly out of the town and up the lake shore. Every little breeze from the waters sent a shower of golden leaves dropping about her. But the air was still in the woods. It was a perfect autumn day, a true Sabbath day in Nature's world, with everything in a beautiful state of rest after labour. The bronze oaks, the yellow elms and the along the shore, now and then dropped a jewel too heavy to be held into the coloured waters beneath. The tower of the little Indian church across the lake a silver finger up out of a soft blue . The whole world seemed at peace, in contrast to the within the girl's untrained heart.
 
She seated herself on a fallen log beside the water, the warm, sunshine falling through the golden branches upon her. And sitting there, she felt the spirit of the day steal over hers. Wiser and nobler thoughts came to her sorely tried young heart. Some strong unknown Spirit rose up within her and demanded that she do what was right. It was her only guide, she could not reason with it, but she blindly obeyed. There would be long days of pain and hard struggle ahead of her, she well knew, but the Spirit them not at all. She must do what was right. She must act the strong, the womanly part, let the future bring what it would.
 
And she went back from the soft peace of the woods, not a careless, selfishly happy girl any more, but a strong, steady-purposed woman.
 
Roderick was so busy and happy during the ensuing week that he had almost forgotten the existence of Miss Leslie Graham, when she was brought to his dismayed senses............