MAUD BARRINGTON'S PROMISE Daylight had not broken across the prairie when, floundering through a foot of dusty snow, Winston reached the Grange.

He was aching from fatigue and cold, and the deerskin jacket stood out from his numbed body stiff with frost, when, leaning heavily on a table, he awaited Colonel Barrington.

The latter, on entering, stared at him, and then flung open a cupboard and poured out a glass of wine.
"Drink that before you talk.

You look half-dead," he said.
Winston shook his head.

"Perhaps you had better hear me first." Barrington thrust the glass upon him.