Then you would stay--if it pleased you.
Where has your splendid audacity gone?"
Winston slowly straightened himself, and the girl noticed the damp the
struggle had brought there on his forehead, for he understood that if
he would stretch out his hand and take it what he longed for might be
his.
"I do not know, any more than I know where it came from, for until I
met Courthorne I had never made a big venture in my life," he said.
"It seems it has served its turn and left me--for now there are things
I am afraid to do."
"So you will go away and forget us?"
Winston stood very still a moment, and the girl, who felt her heart
beating, noticed that his face was drawn. Still, she could go no
further. Then he said very slowly, "I should be under the shadow
always if I stay, and my friends would feel it even more deeply than I
would do. I may win the right to come back again if I go away."
Maud Barrington made no answer, but both knew no further word could be
spoken on that subject until, if fate ever willed it, the man returned
again, and it was a relief when Miss Barrington came in with Dane. He
glanced at his comrade keenly, and then seeing the grimness in his
face, quietly declined the white-haired lady's offer of hospitality.
Five minutes later the farewells were said, and Maud Barrington stood
with the stinging flakes whirling about her in the doorway, while the
sleigh slid out into the filmy whiteness that drove across the prairie.
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