“You mean you wouldn’t?”
“No,” declared Hawtrey, “there’s no doubt of that.”
Mrs. Hastings smiled again. “Well,” she commented, “I would like to think you were right about Harry; it would be a relief to me.”
Hawtrey presently drove away, and soon after he left the homestead Agatha approached Mrs. Hastings.
“There’s something I must ask you,” she said. “Has Gregory consented to take charge of Wyllard’s farm?”
“He has,” answered Mrs. Hastings in her dryest tone.
There was a flash in Agatha’s eyes.
“Oh,” she said, “it’s almost unendurable.”
Agatha saw Wyllard only once again, and that was when he called early one morning. He got down from the wagon where Dampier sat, and shook hands with her and Allen and Mrs. Hastings. Few words were spoken, and she could not remember what she said, but when he swung himself up again and the wagon jolted away into the white prairie she went back to the house with a feeling of loss and depression.