I will never forgive you , Edith ! '' Then Mrs. Hill found herself alone with her lacerated feelings . After soothing them with a good cry , she set to work thinking seriously . There was no doubt she had muddled things badly , but there was no use leaving them in a muddle when a word or two fitly spoken might set them straight . Mrs. Hill sat down and wrote a very diplomatic letter before she went to bed , and the next morning she waylaid Sergeant Fox and asked him if he would ride down to Rainy River with a very important message for Mr. Spencer . Sergeant Fox wondered what it could be , but it was not his to reason why ; it was his only to mount and ride with all due speed , for Mrs. Hill 's whims and wishes were as stringent and binding as the rules of the force . That evening when Mrs. Hill and Violet -- the latter very silent and regal -- were sitting on the verandah , a horseman came galloping up the Rainy River trail . Mrs. Hill excused herself and went in . Five minutes later John Spencer , covered with the alkali dust of his twenty miles ' ride , dismounted at Violet 's side . * * * * * The M.P.s gave a concert at the barracks that night and Mrs. Hill and her Major went to it , as well as everyone else of any importance in town except Violet and Spencer . They sat on Major Hill 's verandah and watched the moon rising over the bluffs and making milk-white reflections in the prairie lakes . `` It seems a year of misery since last night , '' sighed Violet happily . `` You could n't have been quite as miserable as I was , '' said Spencer earnestly . `` You were everything -- absolutely everything to me . Other men have little rills and driblets of affection for sisters and cousins and aunts , but everything in me went out to you . Do you remember you told me the first time we met that love would be a revelation to me ? It has been more . It has been a new gospel . I hardly dared hope you could care for me . Even yet I do n't know why you do . ''
`` I love you , '' said XXXXX gravely , `` because you are you . ''
Violet binding concert doubt feelings hope letter reason speed wishes