He had told her that his new aspect of life had been inspired by her, and the memory of his words still thrilled her. That she was his influence for good filled her with a great and happy contentment. She felt that to be such to the man she loved was in itself worth living for. But he had plainly shown her how much more she could be to him than that. Could any woman ask more than to be a partner in the works his genius conceived? No; and in this thought lay the priceless jewel adorning her crown of womanhood.
She was watching a number of teams and their drivers moving out to a distant hay slough. Forty teams of finely bred Shire horses moving out from the farm with stately gait, each driver sitting astride of his nearside horse's comfortable back. She knew the mowers were already in the slough, where haying had been going on for days. It was a fine string of horses, but it was the merest detail of the stud which was kept up to carry on the work of the farm. And beside all this horse power there were the steam plows, reapers and binders, threshers. The wonders of the organization were almost inexhaustible.
The horses passed her by and vanished into a dip in the rolling plains. Their long day had begun, but unlike Monica, they possessed no other incentive than to demonstrate the necessity of their existence.
As yet the sun had only just cleared the horizon, and the chill of the morning air had not tempered towards the heat of the coming day. Monica felt the chill, and, as soon as the horses had passed her, she lifted her reins to continue her round.
At that moment she became aware of a horseman riding at a gallop from the direction of the farm, and, furthermore, she recognized him at once as Angus Moraine, evidently about to visit the scene of the haying.
She waited for him to come up, and greeted him pleasantly, in spite of the fact that, since the incident of the letter, her feelings toward him had undergone serious revision.
"Good morning, Mr. Moraine," she cried, as the man reined his horse in. "They're out promptly," she added, following the trail of the haying gang with her eyes.
Angus looked after them, too, and his thin lips twisted wryly.
"They need to be," he declared coldly. "There's one time for farm work to start, Mrs. Hendrie—that's daylight."
"Yes. I suppose there's no deviation from that rule."