He kissed her impulsively, and in the next hour she went off to bed.

"What is this?" said her fiance's aunt, as the lawyer lifted a small package from the box of documents, and as he did so, an old photograph slipped and fell to the floor. It was yellow with age; but the reflection of the person was clearly discernible. All three looked at it in wonderment. Then her fiance and his aunt regarded her with apprehension. The package was untied, and all the papers gone through and much history was therein contained. But one fact stood above all others.

"Is _this_ a fact?" said the aunt coldly. Never had she appeared more dignified. Her nephew stood away, regarding Agnes out of eyes in which she could see a growing fear.

"Well, I hope everything is clear," said the lawyer astutely. "It seems that you have come into something, madam, and I trust it will prove of value." She mumbled something in reply, and stood gazing at the two pictures she now held. All that had been so strange to her in life was at last clear. She understood the changing color of her eyes, and her father's statements that he had never quite explained. _At last she knew who she was._

She turned to find herself alone. She opened her lips and started to call the others, and then hesitated. _Why had they left her?_ She looked at the photographs she held--_and understood_.

She gathered the documents and placed them in the box, went upstairs, slowly packed her belongings, and called a cab.

Jean Baptiste came into the granary on the old claim, and looked out over the place. And as he did so, he regarded the spot where the sod house had once stood and wherein he had spent many happy days. As he thought of it, the past rose before him, and he lived through the sweetness again that a harvest had once brought him. That was years before, and in that moment he wished he could bring it back again. _The Custom of the Country and its law_ had forbid, and he had _paid the penalty_. He wondered whether he would do the same again and sacrifice all that had been dear and risk the misery that had followed.

He shifted, and in so doing his back was toward the road. "Withal, it would have been awkward to have married a white woman," he muttered, and reached for the cold lunch he had brought for his meal. Bill and George were eating in the field where they worked.

"Baching is hell," he muttered aloud, and picked up a sandwich.

"How very bad you are, Jean," he heard, and almost strained his neck in turning so quickly.

"_Agnes!_"

"Well, _why_ not?"

"But--but--oh, tell me," and then he became silent and looked away, raising the sandwich to his mouth mechanically.

"Don't eat the cold lunch, Jean. I have brought some that is warm," so saying she uncovered the basket she carried, and he regarded it eagerly.

"But, Agnes, how came you here? I--I--thought you--were _getting married_. Are you here on--on your _wedding trip_?"

"Oh, Lord, no! No, Jean, I am not going to marry."

"_Not going to marry!_"

She shook her head and affected to be sad, but a little smile played around her lips that he saw but didn't understand.

"But--Agnes, _why_?"

"Because the one to whom I was engaged--well, he wouldn't marry me," and she laughed.

"I wish you would make it all clear. At least tell me what it means--that it is so."

"It _is_ so!" she said stoutly, and he believed her when he saw her eyes.

"Well, I guess I'll understand by and by."

"You _will_ understand, soon, Jean," she said kindly. "Papa will explain--_everything_." She turned her eyes away then, and in the moment he reached and grasped her hand. In the next instant he had dropped it, as a far away expression came into his eyes as if he had suddenly recalled something he would forget.

"Jean," she cried, and came close to him. She looked up into his eyes and saw what was troubling him. She got beside him closely then. She placed an arm around him, and with her free hand she lifted his left hand over her shoulder and held his fingers as she looked away across the harvest fields, and sighed lightly as she said:

"Something happened and I was strangely glad and came here because--because I--just _had_ to see you, Jean."

"Please, Jean. You--will--forget that _now_." She paused and was not aware that her arm was around him, and that his hand rested over her shoulder. Her eyes were as they had been that day near this selfsame spot years before, kind and endearing. She did not resist as she saw his manly love and felt his body quiver.

And almost were his lips touching hers when suddenly, she saw him hesitate, and despite the darkness of his face, she could see that in that moment the blood seemed to leave it. He dropped the arms that had embraced her, and almost groaned aloud. As she stood regarding him he turned and walked away with his eyes upon the earth.

She turned then and retraced her steps, but as she went along the roadway she was thinking of him and herself and _who she was at last_.

She sighed, strangely contented, and was positive--knew that in due time _he too_ must come to understand.

CHAPTER XX

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

It was in the autumn time, after the wheat and the oats, the rye, the barley and the flaxseed had all been gathered, and threshed, and also after the corn had been husked. Wheat, he had raised, thousands and thousands of bushels. And because there was war over all the old world, and the great powers of the land were in the grim struggle of trying to crush each other from the face of the earth, the power under which he lived was struggling with the task of feeding a portion of those engaged in the struggle. And because Black Rust had impaired the spring wheat yield those thousands of bushels he raised, he had sold at a price so high that he had sufficient to redeem at last the land he was about to lose and money left for future development into the bargain.

He sat alone at this moment in a stateroom aboard a great continental limited, just out of Omaha and speeding westward to the Pacific coast.

As was his customary wont, his thoughts were prolific. But for once--and maybe for the first time, on the whole, he was satisfied,--he was contented--and last, but not least, he was happy.

Being happy, however, is not quite possible alone. No, and Jean Baptiste was _not_ alone. And here is what had happened.

Jack Stewart had told him the story. And in the story told, one great mystery was solved. He now understood why Agnes' eyes had been so baffling. Simple, too, in a measure. To begin with, her mother had possessed rare brown eyes, he had seen by her picture, because Agnes'

mother had not been a white woman at all, but in truth was of Ethiopian extraction. This was a part of the story Jack Stewart had told him. He had met and married her mother on a trip from the West Indies where she had lived, to Glasgow; the marriage being decided upon quickly, for in truth the woman was fleeing. In London some years before, she had been the pupil of a learned minister, who had become an infidel, and also unscrupulous. But we know the story--at least a part of it--of Augustus M. Barr, alias, Isaac M. Barr; alias--but it does not matter. We are concerned with Agnes' mother. Her mother had inherited a small fortune from Agnes' grandma and this Barr had sought to secure. To do so, he had followed Jack Stewart and his wife, Agnes' mother to Jerusalem. There he had met Isaac Syfe, the Jew, whom he later brought to America. He did not find the woman he had followed there, but on his return to England he _did_ find Peter Kaden who was married to Christine. Kaden was involved in a murder case, was accused, and had been sentenced to Australia for the rest of his natural life. It was Barr who saved him, and the fee Kaden paid was Christine. Barr accommodated him by bringing him to America where he placed all three, including himself, on homesteads. Syfe settled with him in cash by taking a large loan on his homestead and giving Barr the proceeds.

But Kaden was in the way. He had never been comfortable in the new country with Christine the wife of another and living so near, so Barr sent Christine away and drove Kaden to suicide. Later at Lincoln, Nebraska she left him and went out of his life forever. Barr had secured Kaden's homestead, and all this Jack Stewart knew, but had never disclosed. Barr lost track of Agnes' mother, but knew that somewhere in the world there was a treasure but not as great as he had thought it was--about ten thousand dollars in all.

While Jean Baptiste was absorbed in these thoughts, the door was opened quietly, and closed. Some one had entered the stateroom and his ears caught the light rustle of a skirt. His eyes were upon the landscape, but suddenly they saw nothing, for his eyes had been covered by a pair of soft hands.

"I knew it was you," he said, happily, as he drew her into the seat beside him, between himself and the window.

"What are you thinking of, my Jean," she said then.

"Of what I have been thinking ever since the day when we understood that you and I after all are of the same blood."

"Oh, you have," she chimed, and drawing his face close with her hands, she kissed him ardently.

"Isn't it beautiful, Agnes? Just grand!"

"Oh, Jean, you make me so happy."

"You are _honestly_ happy, dear?" he inquired for the hundredth time.

"I _couldn't_ be happier," and she reposed in his arms.