Gardiner rose from his chair and went towards her.
"That is for you to say," he cried.
And when he returned to the office he handed in no more than a paragraph. It was considered in some quarters an adequate explanation of the disappearance of Hunt and Gawthrop. Yet it was not adequate for Edith. It was only when she became Mrs. Gardiner, and they were on their way East, that her husband told her the truth.
"I'm really very sorry now," said Gardiner. "Nevertheless, it will do them lots of good. They required it. You never really liked either of them, Edith?"
"No-o, not that way," said his wife. But she said to herself, "Next day I should have accepted Mr. Gawthrop!"
They ran into Laramie Junction, that horrible centre of sage-brush and alkali. A bitter wind drove dust against the windows of their car.
"It's a ghastly prospect," said Gardiner, as he looked out on the prairie.
"It would have been," replied his wife absently.
"It would have been?" asked her husband in surprise.
"I mean it is, of course," said Edith hastily.