On the day after her mother's death she had sent a brief telegram to Tom: "Mother passed away quietly yesterday." His reply did not come for almost a week. That did not surprise her. She knew what the roads must be. But the message itself, with its bitterness, was like a blow in the face: "Sorry to hear of your trouble, but there are worse things than reaching the end of the trail after a hard day."
No suggestion that, now that her contract had expired, she could return to him. A perfunctory sympathy, an implied reproach, and that was all. She thought back over her letter to him last autumn; she had told him she would come back if he wanted her, but it had been a hard letter, in away. If she were writing now it would be different. How could one be hard, when life was so insecure at the best, and so short? When every time the clock ticked there was just so much less time to live, to love and to be loved? When to quarrel was to lose precious time; time, which was all one had.
She found that her mother had made a will, leaving her all her small estate. It was not much, but she had taken great happiness in doing it. It had been Bessie Osborne's suggestion.
"You know Henry as well as I do," she had said, more gently than the words would indicate. "All the Dowling men have used money as a club over their women. And Kay has her own life to live. If she wants to go back West"
"Do you think she does?"
"I don't know. But she ought to be able to if she should. She'll get all I have, of course, but I"
She had stopped abruptly. It would not do to say to this dying woman that she, Bessie Osborne, expected to live a long time yet, and to enjoy every minute of it.
"I think she ought to be free to make her own choice," she finished, rather lamely.
So Katherine, like old Lucius, had made her will, and after it was signed and witnessed, just before it was put into the heavy envelope and sealed, she added a line or two in pencil: "My darling girl: You must make your own
