Why, then, should they meet?
Why seek even to know of each other?
Close together, or far apart, there yawned a bottomless gulf between.
Silence was better; silence, and the mercy of partial forgetfulness.
Winston had toiled hard during those years, partly from a natural liking, partly to forget his heartaches.

Feverishly he had taken up the tasks confronting him, sinking self in the thought of other things.
Such work had conquered success, for he did his part in subjecting nature to man, thus winning a reputation already ranking him high among the mining experts of the West.

His had become a name to conjure with in the mountains and mining camps.

During the long months he had hoped fiercely.

Yet he had made no endeavor to seek her out, or to uncover her secret.