"Harry remembered that he'd want the wagon to-morrow, and there's a bolt loose," he explained. "It didn't seem to occur to him until he noticed you. I suppose one could call it a coincidence."
"Have you any different ideas on the subject?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired.
"Since you ask the question, it looks rather like collusion."
"Well," laughed Mrs. Farquhar, "I certainly wanted a little talk with you. To begin with, I should like to point out that we have had a good deal of your company lately."
"That's a fact. Perhaps I'd better say that quite apart from the pleasure of spending an evening with you and Harry there's another reason."
"The thing has been perfectly obvious for some time; indeed, it has had my serious consideration. You see, I hold myself responsible for Alison to some extent."
"You feel that you standin loco parentis—I believe that's the correct phrase—but in one way it doesn't seem to apply. Nobody would believe you were old enough to be her mother."
Mrs. Farquhar glanced at him in half-amused impatience, but his manner swiftly changed.
"It's my intention to marry Alison as soon as things permit," he added. "Anyway, that is what I should like to do, but whether I'll ever get any farther is, of course, another matter. It's one on which I'd be glad to have your opinion; and that suggests a question. Can my views have been perfectly obvious to Alison?"
His companion looked thoughtful.
"That's a little difficult to answer; though I feel inclined to say that they certainly ought to have been. Onthe other hand, it's possible that she may believe you merely saw in her what we'll call an intellectual equal—somebody you would have more in common with than you would, for example, with Lucy. This seems the more likely because I don't think that marriage in itself has any great attraction for her. Indeed, I'm inclined to fancy that it was rather a shock to her to discover how it is regarded by some people in this country. It's unfortunate that she fell in with one hasty suitor who was anxious to marry her offhand immediately on her arrival. That being the case, it strikes me that you had better proceed cautiously and avoid anything that may suggest a too materialistic point of view."
Thorne made a gesture of comprehensive repudiation.
"I'm thankful that nobody could call me smugly practical. But, it must be admitted that, as she is situated, marriage seems to be her only vocation in this country."
"If you let her see that you think that, you may as well give up your project." Mrs. Farquhar hesitated a moment. "Have you ever tried to formulate what you expect from Alison?"
Thorne's smile made it evident that he guessed what was in her mind.
"I can at least tell you what I don't expect. I've no hankering for a house and domestic comforts—in my experience they're singularly apt to pall on one. I don't want a woman to mend my clothes and prepare me tempting meals—that way of looking at the thing strikes one as almost unthinkable, and there never was a banquet where the fare was half as good as what you turn out of the blackened spider in the birch bluff. I want Alison, with her English graces and English prejudices; her only, and nothing else."
"That is a sentiment which would no doubt appeal to her; but one has to be practical; and you would in any case have to do a good deal before you got her. She couldn't, for instance, dress in flour-bags and live in the wagon. Nor do I think that Bishop would feel equal to entertaining a married couple during the winter."
"The point of all this is that you want to be satisfied that I can give up my vagabond habits?" suggested Thorne. "Well, I must try to convince you, though I want to say that it was a willing sacrifice. Haven't I gone into harness—yoked myself down to a house and land, with a mortgage on both of them; haven't I slept for several months now under at least a partly shingled roof? If any more proof is wanted, haven't I come to terms with Corporal Slaney and given up the excitement of bluffing the police; and haven't I decided, as far as it's possible for me, to leave Nevis unmolested? Aren't all these things foreign to my nature?"
Mrs. Farquhar laughed.
"Mavy," she asked, "do you find living in some degree of comfort, and devoting your intelligence to a task that will probably pay you, so very intolerable?"
Thorne smiled and made a little, confidential gesture.
"I must confess that I don't find it quite as unpleasant as I had expected. But you haven't given me your opinion on the point that concerns me most."
"Then," said Mrs. Farquhar, with an air of reflection, "while Alison has naturally not said anything to me on the subject, I don't think you need consider your case as altogether desperate."
She smiled at Thorne, who swung himself up into his wagon and drove away.
Florence Hunter had lately returned from Toronto and was sitting on the veranda toward the middle of the afternoon in an unusually thoughtful mood. Among other reasons for this, there was the fact that she had spent a good deal of money while she was away, and she was far from sure that she had received its full value. Most of the people she had met in Toronto appeared to be endued with irritatingly respectable, old-fashioned views, and as a result of it they could not be induced to forget that she was a married woman separated for a few weeks from a self-sacrificing husband. Indeed, one or two of them went so far as to condole with her for his absence, and their general attitude imposed on her an unwelcome restraint. There was certainly one exception, but this man had no tact, and the lady who stood sponsor for her openly frowned at his too marked devotion, while some of the others laughed. Florence at length got rid of him summarily, and then half regretted it when nobody else aspired to fill his place.
It had, further, occurred to her in Elcot's absence that he had a number of strong points, after all. He was quiet and steadfast, not to be moved from his purpose by anger or cajolery, and though this was sometimes troublesome, there was no doubt that he was a man who could be relied upon. She had nothing to fear, except, perhaps, her own imprudence, while she was in his care.Then, although she would hardly have expected it before she went away, she found the spacious wooden house pleasantly cool and quiet after the stir and rush of life in the hot city, and Elcot's unobtrusive regard for her comfort soothing. He never fussed, but when she wanted anything done he was almost invariably at hand. She determined to be more gracious to him in the future, for she was troubled with a slightly uncomfortable feeling that he might have had something to complain of in this respect in the past.
On the whole, her thoughts were far from pleasant, and in addition to this the temperature, which was a good deal higher than usual, had a depressing effect on her. There was no breeze that afternoon, and the air was still and heavy; the white prairie flung back a trying light, even on to the shaded veranda, and she felt restless, captious and irritable. At length, however, she took up a book and endeavored to become engrossed in it. She so far succeeded that she did not hear a buggy drive up, and it was with a start that she straightened herself in her chair as Nevis walked quietly on to the veranda.
"I never expected you!" she exclaimed.
The man smiled in a deprecatory fashion.
"I heard at the station that you arrived yesterday."
Florence frowned at this. The inference was too obvious; he evidently wished to imply that it would have been unnatural had he delayed his visit.
"Well," she said, "you startled me. Do you generally walk into places that way—like a pickpocket?"
Nevis laughed, and when he sat down rather close to her, uninvited, she favored him with a gaze of careful and undisguised scrutiny. Florence could be openly rude upon occasion, and though his visits hitherto had afforded her some satisfaction, she now felt that she would have been better pleased had he stayed away. He was, as usual, tastefully dressed; there was no doubt that his clothes became him; but somehow it struck her that, although she had not realized this earlier, the man looked cheap, which on consideration seemed the best word for it.
"I suppose you enjoyed yourself while you were away?" he began.
"No," replied Florence; "on the whole, I don't think I did."
She broke off and added irritably:
"Why do you always come at this time? If you drove over in the evening you would find Elcot at home."
She was genuinely provoked by her companion's smile. It so tactlessly implied that she did not mean what she had said. His signal lack of delicacy jarred on her now, though she remembered with faint wonder that she had on previous occasions found a relish in his conversation.
"Well," he answered, "for one reason, I generally call here when I'm going to the bluff. It's convenient to get there for supper."
Florence was annoyed at the opening words. The hint that there was a stronger reason which he had not mentioned was so crude that it savored of mere impertinence. Somehow she felt disappointed in the man. She had, as she realized at length, expected clever compliments from him, firmly finished, subtle boldness that would be just sufficiently apparent to convey a pleasurable thrill, and, with the latter exception, a wholly respectful homage. As to what he had expected she was far from clear, but that was a point of much less account. The polish, however, seemed suddenly to have been rubbed off him, and there was nothing into which she cared to look beneath. Even Elcot would have been capable of something more skilful than his too familiar inanities. What had brought about this change in the way she regarded him she did not know, but there was no doubt that she felt all at once disillusioned. She was in her caprices essentially variable.
"Your supper is evidently a matter of importance to you," she said.
Nevis looked at her sharply.
"Not more than it is to most other men. In return, I wonder if I might point out that you don't seem quite as amiable as usual to-day?"
Florence laughed.
"As a matter of fact, I'm not. Nobody could feel very pleasant at this temperature; and I'm disappointed—with several things." She leaned back languidly in her chair with an air of weariness. "When that happens it's a relief to be disagreeable to anybody who comes along. Besides, you're not in the least entertaining this afternoon."
There was something in her manner that stung the man, and he ventured upon an impertinence.
"I suppose that means that Elcot hasn't proved amenable, as usual; but it's a little rough on me that I should have to meet the bill after a long and scorching drive."
Florence laughed again, scornfully.
"Elcot," she retorted, "is accustomed to carrying his own load, and on occasion other people's too, which is a weakness with which I'd never credit you. Besides, if he'd traveled for a week to see me he wouldn't think of reminding me of it."
"You seem inclined to drag his virtues out and parade them to-day."
There was no doubt that the man was going too far, and that led Florence to wonder whether he could be driven into going any farther.
"That," she replied, "would be quite unnecessary in Elcot's case. In fact, his virtues have an almost exasperating habit of meeting you in the face, which is no doubt why it's rather pleasant to get away from them—occasionally."
"You prefer something different on the off-days?"
"Yes," Florence answered reflectively, "I like a change; but it must be admitted that I invariably feel an increased respect for Elcot after it."
Nevis winced at this. She had made it clear that it was his part to amuse her at irregular intervals and enhance her husband's finer qualities by the contrast. It was not, however, one that appealed to him, and he had a vindictive temper. As it happened, she presently gave him an opportunity for indulging it.
"I wish I'd never gone to Toronto," she said petulantly.
"Considering everything, that's quite a pity," Nevis pointed out. "The visit probably cost you a good deal of money; and"—he added this with a grim suggestiveness—"wheat is steadily going down."
Florence gazed at him with a hardening face. He evidently meant it as a reminder that she owed him money. The man was becoming intolerable.
"Is it?" she asked indifferently. "In any case, I shall no doubt manage to meet my debts when they fall due."
Nevis had reasons for believing that it would be moredifficult than she seemed to anticipate, but he talked about something else, and then, finding that his companion did not favor him with very much attention, he took his leave. When he was getting into his buggy Hunter came up and stopped him.
"I'm rather busy, but I can spare you a few minutes if it's necessary," he said.
Nevis looked at him with a provocative smile.
"It isn't," he answered. "It was your wife I came to see; she entrusted me with the arranging of a little matter."
He gathered up the reins, and added, as though to explain his departure:
"There are several things I want to get through with at the bluff this evening."
"Then I won't try to keep you."
Hunter walked up on the veranda and, leaning on the balustrade, looked at his wife.
"You have had a deal of some kind with that man?"
A flush of anger swept into Florence's cheek.
"He told you that?" she exclaimed; and then added, with a harsh laugh, "As it happens, he was quite correct."
Hunter stood still with an expressionless face for a moment or two, apparently waiting in case she had anything else to say; and then, with a gesture which might have meant anything, he moved away along the veranda. Florence's conscience accused her when he disappeared into the house; but she was most clearly sensible that she was now a little afraid of Nevis and disposed to hate him. However, she lay quietly in her basket-chair until word was brought her that supper was ready.
Two or three days later Nevis sat late one night in his office at the railroad settlement. It was situated at the back of his implement store, on the ground floor of a very ugly wooden building which had a false front that rose a little beyond the ridge of roof. One door opened directly on to the prairie; the other led into the store, from which there exuded a pungent smell of paint and varnish. A nickeled lamp hung over Nevis's head, and the little room was unpleasantly hot, so hot, indeed, that he sat in his shirt-sleeves before a table littered with papers. Not far away a small safe stood open. This contained further papers tied up in several bundles and neatly endorsed. There was nothing else in the room except a few shelves filled with account books; and there was no covering on the floor. Nevis, like most commercial men in the small western towns, wasted very little money on superfluous accessories. He found that he could employ it much more profitably.
He had, as it happened, a troublesome matter to decide on, and seeing no way out of the difficulties which complicated it, he rose at length, and, lighting a cigar, opened the outer door and stood leaning against it. It was cooler there, and he noticed that the night was unusually dark. The stream of light that flowed out past him, forcing up his figure in a sharp, black silhouette, only intensified the thick obscurity in which it was almost immediately lost. It was also very still, and he could hear his white shirt crackle at each slight movement of the hand that held the cigar. Everybody in the little wooden town was, he surmised, already asleep, though he knew that a west-bound train would stop there in half an hour or so.
He did not know how long he remained in the doorway,but by degrees the stillness became oppressive, and at last he started as a sound rose suddenly out of the darkness. It was a faint, metallic rattle, and he leaned forward a little, listening in strained attention. The noise was so unexpected that it jarred on him.
Then he recollected that some of his neighbors were addicted to dumping empty provision cans and similar refuse into a clump of willows which straggled close up to the back of the town not far away, and he decided that one of them had fallen down or rolled over. After that he went back to his table, leaving the door open for the sake of coolness, and he was once more occupied with his papers when he heard a sharp knocking at the front of the store. Pushing his chair back he took out his watch. Somebody who was going west by the train that was almost due apparently desired to see him, though it seemed a curious thing that the man had not called earlier. He rose and entered the store, where he fell against the projecting handle of a plow in the darkness. This ruffled his temper, and he spent some time impatiently fumbling for and undoing the fastenings of the outer door. Then he flung it open somewhat violently, and strode out into the darkness. There was, so far as he could see, nobody in the vicinity, and when, moving forward a few paces he called out, he got no answer.
Feeling slightly uneasy as well as astonished, he stood still for, perhaps, a minute, gazing about him. He could dimly see the houses across the street, with the tall false fronts of one or two cutting black against the sky, but there was not a light in any of them, and there was certainly no sound of footsteps. He was neither a nervous nor a fanciful man, and it scarcely seemed possiblethat his ears had deceived him. Swinging around suddenly, he went back into the store and fastened the outer door before he reentered his office. The door at the back of the office and the safe stood open just as he had left them. Crossing the room he looked into the safe.
As a rule, a man's possessions are as secure in a small prairie town as they would be in, for example, London or Montreal, but Nevis seldom kept much money in his safe. He usually made his collections after harvest, and remitted the proceeds to a bank in Winnipeg. A small iron cash-box, however, occupied one shelf, and it was at once evident that this had not been touched, which seemed to prove that nobody with dishonest intentions had entered the place in his absence. This was satisfactory, but a few moments later it struck him that one of the bundles of docketed papers was not lying exactly where he had last placed it. He could not be quite sure of this, though he was methodical in his habits, and he took the bundle up and examined it. The tape around it was securely tied and the papers did not seem to have been disturbed. Besides this, they were in no sense marketable securities.
He laid them down again and closed the safe. Then, locking the outer door behind him, he proceeded through the silent town toward the track. As he did so the clanging of a locomotive bell broke through a slackening clatter of wheels, and when after a smart run he reached the station, hot and somewhat breathless, the lights of the long train were just sliding out of it. He strode up to the agent, who stood in the doorway of his office shack with a lantern in his hand.
"Did anybody get on board?" he asked.
"No," replied the agent. "Nobody got off, either. Did you expect to catch up any one?"
"I fancied somebody called at the store a few minutes ago. It occurred to me that the man might want to leave some message and had forgotten it until he was going to catch the train."
"I guess it must have been a delusion," remarked the agent.
Nevis had almost arrived at the same conclusion. He waited a few minutes, and then they walked back together through the settlement. The agent left him outside the store, above which he had a room, and dismissing the matter from his mind he went tranquilly to sleep half an hour later.
Alison was sitting alone in the general living-room of the Farquhar homestead about an hour after breakfast when she laid down her sewing with a start as a man whom she had not heard approaching suddenly appeared in the doorway. He stood there, looking at her with what she felt was a very suspicious curiosity, and there was no doubt that his appearance was decidedly against him. His clothing, which had been rudely patched with cotton flour-bags, was old and stained with soil; his face was hard and grim; and she grew apprehensive under his fixed scrutiny.
"Where's the rest of you?" he asked after an unpleasant silence of a few moments.
Alison felt that it would be singularly injudicious to inform him, and while she hesitated, wondering what to answer, he strode into the room and fell heavily into the nearest chair.
"You'll excuse me," he apologized. "I'm played out."
The signs of weariness were plain on him, and Alison became a little reassured. After all, she remembered, there was nothing of very much value in the homestead; and she had never as yet had any reason to fear the men she had come across upon the prairie. In fact, though one had wanted to marry her offhand, their general conduct compared very favorably with that of one or two whom she had met in English cities.
"Have you come far?" she asked.
"From the railroad—on my feet," answered the man. "I left it about midnight two nights ago, and since then I've only had a morsel of food." Then he smiled at her. "You haven't told me yet where Harry Farquhar and his wife have gone."
It was clear that he had already satisfied himself that they were out, and Alison reluctantly admitted it.
"Mrs. Farquhar has driven over to the bluff," she said. "She took her husband with her, but she was to drop him at the ravine where the birches are. He wanted to cut some poles."
The look of annoyance in the man's face further reassured her, as it implied that he regretted Farquhar's absence almost as much as she had done a few moments earlier.
"It's a sure thing I can't wait till they come back, and the trouble is I can't make Mrs. Calvert's place without a rest, either."
He paused and gazed searchingly at Alison.
"You're Miss Leigh, aren't you? I guess you could be trusted; I've heard of you."
Alison's astonishment was evident, and he smiled.
"It's quite likely," he added dryly, "that you've heard of me. My name's Jake Winthrop."
Alison sat very still, and it was a moment or two before she spoke.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Breakfast, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. Then, as Farquhar's out, there's a piece of paper I'd like to give you. Guess it would be safer out of my hands; the police troopers are after me."
Alison set the kettle and frying-pan on the stove. Shewas compassionate by nature, and the man looked very jaded and weary. When she sat down again he handed her a rather bulky folded paper which appeared to be some kind of legal document.
"What am I to do with this?" she asked.
"You can give it to Farquhar, or keep it and hide it," said the man. "I guess the last would be wisest. Nobody would figure you had the thing, and I can't give it to Lucy, because Nevis would sure get after her."
"Is it very important?"
"It might be. I can't go and ask a lawyer now. Guess the man would feel it was his duty to put Slaney on my trail, and I couldn't go near the settlement in daylight without doing the same. Anyway, it's my mortgage deed, and I have a notion that it might give me a pull on Nevis if the troopers get me. If I'm right, he'll be mighty anxious to get it back again."
"I don't understand," returned Alison. "If he was afraid of your using it against him, he wouldn't have given it to you at all."
Winthrop grinned.
"He didn't. I got him out of his office late at night and crept in for it. I knew where he kept the thing because I'd seen him put it in his safe."
Alison was far from pleased with this confession, but while she considered it another point occurred to her.
"But don't people generally get a duplicate of a paper of this kind?" she asked.
"I had one, but Nevis wanted me to do something that didn't seem quite what we had agreed on, and I went over with the deed to show him he was wrong. He said I'd better leave it, and somehow or other I could never get it out of his hands again."
"Ah," said Alison softly, "I think I wouldn't mind helping you against that man. But you must tell me exactly what you mean to do."
"I'm going across to see Lucy—and out West somewhere after that. If I can get away, and strike anything that will pay me, it's quite likely that I'll leave Nevis alone. If I can't, or there's a reason for it later, I'll write you, and Farquhar or Thorne could take the deed to a lawyer and see if he could get at Nevis with it. In the meanwhile it would be wiser if you just hid the thing away. If Farquhar knows nothing about it, I guess it would save him trouble."
Alison did not answer for a moment or two. She felt that she was acting imprudently in allowing herself to be drawn into the affair, but she was sorry for the man. He was a friend of Thorne's, and that counted for a good deal in his favor. In addition to this, the idea of playing a part, and possibly a leading part, in something of the nature of a complicated drama appealed to her, and there was, half formulated at the back of her mind, the desire to prove to Thorne just what she was capable of.
"Well," she said at length, "you may leave it with me."
Then she set about getting him a meal, and a little while later he limped wearily away. He left her with the impression that it would be wise of Nevis to abandon his pursuit of him, for there was something in the man's manner which indicated that he might prove dangerous if pressed too hard. The morning had slipped away before she could get the thought of him out of her mind.
In the meanwhile, he was plodding across the white wilderness under a scorching sun. The atmosphere wascrystallinely clear, and an almost intolerable brightness flooded the wide levels. A birch bluff miles away was etched in clean-cut tracery upon the horizon, but though the weary man kept his eyes sharply open he felt reasonably safe from observation, which it seemed desirable to avoid. He did not believe that any of the scattered farmers would betray him, even if some pressure should be put upon them with the view of extracting information, but it was clear that they would be better able to evade any attempts Nevis or Slaney might make to entrap them into some incautious admission if they had none to impart. Winthrop based this decision on the fact that a man certainly cannot tell what he does not know.
It was consoling to remember that the wide, open prairie is by no means a bad place to hide in. A mounted figure or a team and wagon shows up for a vast distance against the skyline, while a few grass tussocks less than a foot in height will effectually conceal a man who lies down among them with the outline of his body broken by the blades from anybody passing within two or three hundred yards of him. Winthrop was aware, however, that it would be different if he attempted to run away; and once he dropped like a stone when a buggy rose unexpectedly out of a ravine. The man who drove it was an acquaintance of his, but he seemed to gaze right at the spot where Winthrop was stretched out without seeing him. The latter was not disturbed again, but he cast rather dubious glances round him as he resumed his march. There was another long journey in front of him that night, and he did not like the signs of the weather. It struck him as ominously clear.
He was, as it happened, not the only person who noticed this, for other people who had at different times suffered severely in pocket from the vagaries of the climate had arrived at much the same opinion that afternoon, with more or less uneasiness according to their temperament. The wheat was everywhere standing tall and green, and the season had been on the whole so propitious that from bitter experience they almost expected a change. As the small cultivator has discovered, the simile of a beneficent nature is a singularly misleading one, for the stern truth was proclaimed in ages long ago that man must toil with painful effort for the bread he eats, and must subdue the earth before he can render it fruitful. In the new West he has made himself many big machines, including the great gang-plows that rip their multiple furrows through the prairie soil, but he still lies defenseless against the fickle elements.
Elcot Hunter, at least, was anxious that night as he sat in the general living-room of his homestead opposite his wife. She was not greatly interested in the book she held, and she glanced at him now and then as he sat poring over a newspaper which was noted for its crop and market reports. They afforded Hunter very little satisfaction, for they made it clear that the West would produce enough wheat that season to flood an already lifeless market.
The windows of the room were open wide, and the smell of sun-baked soil damped by the heavy dew came in with the sound made by the movements of a restless horse or two. The fall of hoofs appeared unusually distinct. The wooden house, which had lain baking under a scorching sun all day, was still very hot, but the faint puffs of air which flowed in were delightfully cool, and at length Florence, who was very lightly clad, shivered as one that was stronger than the rest lifted a sheet of Hunter's paper.
"It is positively getting cold," she remarked.
"Cold?" returned Hunter. "I wouldn't call it that."
He resumed his reading, and three or four minutes had slipped by when Florence turned to him with irritation in her manner.
"Haven't you anything to say, Elcot?" she broke out. "Are those crop statistics so very fascinating?"
Hunter looked up at her with a rather grim smile. She lay in a low cane chair beneath the lamp, with her figure falling into long sweeping lines, attired in costly fripperies lately purchased in the East, but there was not the least doubt that they became her. Indeed, with the satiny whiteness of her neck and arms half revealed beneath the gauzy draperies, and her hair gleaming lustrously about a face that had been carefully shielded from the ravages of the weather, she seemed strangely out of place in the primitively furnished room of a western homestead. The man noticed it, as he had done on other occasions, with a pang of regret. There had been a time when he had expected her to rejoice in his successes and console him in his defeats, and it had hurt when she had made it clear that any reference to his occupation only irritated her. He had got over that, as he had borne other troubles, with an uncomplaining quietness, and, though she had never suspected this, he had often felt sorry for her. Still, he was a man of somewhat unyielding character, and there was occasionally friction when he did what he considered most fitting, in spite of her protests.
"Well," he said in answer to her question, "they have, anyway, some interest to a farmer who has a good dealat stake." He threw the paper down. "Things in general aren't very promising, and I may be rather tightly fixed after the harvest. I seem to have been spending a great deal of money lately."
Florence felt guilty. After all, as she was the principal cause of his expenses, it was generous of him to put it as he had done. Indeed, she decided to make a confession about the loan from Nevis sometime when he appeared to be in an unusually favorable mood.
"You have a splendid crop, haven't you?" she asked.
"The trouble is that I may not get much for it, and a wheat crop is never quite safe until it's thrashed out. I'm uncertain about the weather."
"The aneroid has gone up; I looked at it."
"It's gone up too much and too suddenly," said Hunter. "That sometimes means a bad outbreak from the north."
Florence was moved by a sudden impulse. The man was bronzed and toughened by labor, but there was, as she had noticed since she came home, a jaded look in his face.
"Elcot," she asked, "do you think I oughtn't to have gone away?"
The man seemed to consider this.
"No," he answered, "I don't think that, so long as you were able to manage it with the little help I could give you." He paused a moment, and looked puzzled, for there was a suspicion of heightened color in Florence's face. "On the whole, I'm glad you went, if you enjoyed the visit."
"You don't seem very sure. Wasn't it rather dull for you here?"
It was, so far as he could remember, the first time shehad displayed any interest on this point, and he smiled.
"Oh, I had the place to look after, as usual. It's fortunate that it occupies a good deal of my attention."
Florence leaned forward suddenly.
"Elcot, won't you tell me exactly how much you mean by that?"
It was a moment or two before Hunter answered.
"Well," he said gravely, "since you have suggested it, perhaps I better had, though it means the dragging in of questions we've talked over quite often already. I took up farming because I couldn't stand the cities and it seemed the thing I was most fitted for. On that point I haven't changed my opinions. Where I did wrong was in marrying you." He checked her with a lifted hand as she was about to speak. "If you had never met me, you would probably have taken the next man with means who came along."
"Yes," admitted Florence, meeting his gaze. "I think that's true. Having gone so far, hadn't you better proceed?"
"I'm trying to look at it from your standpoint; I've never been sorry on my own account."
Florence laughed in a strained fashion.
"That's a little difficult to believe. Still, one must do you the justice to own that you have, at least, never mentioned your regrets."
"I don't think I've often mentioned my expectations either. That's one reason I'm speaking now. You seem—approachable—to-night."
"I suppose they were not fulfilled?"
"If they were not, it was my own fault. I took youout of the environment you were suited to and content with."
"I wasn't," Florence declared sharply. "Things were horribly unpleasant to me then. I was struggling desperately to earn a living, and had to put up with a good deal from most disagreeable people."
Again a faint, grim smile crept into her husband's eyes.
"After all, perfect candor is a little painful now and then; but let me go on. At least, I brought you into an environment with which you were not content. The kind of life I led was irksome to you; you could not help me in it; even to hear me talk of what I did each day was burdensome to you. I couldn't speak of my plans for the future, or the difficulties that must be met and faced continually. For a while I felt it badly."
"Yes," Florence acknowledged, "it must have been hard on you, Elcot."
"It could be borne, but there was another side of the matter. It was clear that you were longing for company, stir, gaiety—and I could not give them to you. As I've often said, I'm not rich enough to make a mark in any of the cities, unless I went into business, for which I've neither the training nor inclination, and most of my money is sunk in the land here. It's difficult to sell a farm of this size for anything like its value unless wheat is dear. Besides, the friends you would wish to make wouldn't take to me. That is certain; I lived among people of their description before I met you. I couldn't in any way have helped you to make yourself a leading place in the only kind of society that would satisfy you. All this has stood between us—no doubt it was unavoidable—but it made the troubles I could share with no onea little worse to bear, and my few successes of less account to me. After all, since I could, at least, send you to the cities now and then, it was fortunate that I had my farm." He stopped a moment and added deprecatingly: "Whether you will be able to get away next winter is more than I know. As I said, the outlook is far from promising in the meanwhile."
Florence did not answer immediately. At last, she could clearly grasp the man's point of view. Indeed, she realized that during the few years they had lived together she had taken all he had to offer and had given practically nothing in return. She felt almost impelled to tell him that her last visit to the cities had brought her very little pleasure, and that she would be willing to spend the next winter with him at the lonely homestead; but she could not do so. A surrender of any kind was difficult to her, and she had by degrees built up a barrier of reserve between them that could not immediately be thrown down. Besides, there was in the background the memory of Nevis's loan.
"Things may look better by and by," she said lamely.
Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, and it seemed to Florence that the room grew perceptibly colder, while once or twice a little puff of air struck with a sudden chill upon her face. Then there was a sharp drumming, which ceased again abruptly, upon the shingled roof, and she followed Hunter when he strode out on the veranda. An impenetrable darkness now overhung most of the sky, and there was a wild beat of hoofs as three or four invisible horses dashed across the paddock. Florence knew that the beasts were young, and understood that they were valuable. Her husband moved toward the steps.
"I'll put them into the stable, or, if I can't manage that, turn them out on the prairie," he said. "I'm afraid of the new fence. They're not accustomed to it yet, and there are two barbed strands in it."
"Take one of the hired men with you," Florence called after him, but he made no answer, and the next moment a mad beat of hoofs once more broke out as the uneasy horses galloped furiously back across the fenced-in space.
The air had grown very still again when Florence leaned on the veranda balustrade, gazing into the darkness, which was now intense. The brief shower of heavy rain had wet the grass, and waves of warm moisture charged with an odor like that of a hothouse seemed to flow about her and recede again, leaving her almost shivering in her gauzy dress, for between whiles it was by contrast strangely cold. She could hear Hunter calling to the horses, which apparently broke away from him now and then in short, savage rushes, but she could see nothing of him or them. Presently the sharp cries of one of the hired men broke in, and Florence, who felt her nerves tingling, became conscious of an unpleasant tension.
Then for a second, or part of it, the figures of moving men and beasts became visible, etched hard and black against an overwhelming brightness, as a blaze of lightning smote the prairie. The glare of it was dazzling, and when it vanished Florence was left gripping the balustrade, bewildered and wrapped in an intolerable darkness. After that a drumming of hoofs and a hoarse cry broke upon her ears, but both were drowned and lost in a deafening crash of thunder. It rolled far back into the distance in great reverberations, and while her light skirt fluttered about her in an icy draught another sound emerged from them as they died away.
It grew nearer and louder in a persistent, portentous crescendo, for at first it suggested the galloping of a squadron of horse, then a regiment, and at length the furious approach of a division of cavalry. Holding fast to the balustrade, she could even imagine that there were mingled with it the crash of jolting wheels and a clamor of wild voices as of a host behind pressing onward to the onslaught. The din was scarcely drowned by a tremendous rumbling that twice filled the air; and there was forced upon her a vague perception of the fact that it was a very real attack upon the things that enabled her to have the ease she loved. Wheat and cattle, stables and homestead must, it almost seemed, go down, and there were, as sole and pitiful defense, two men somewhere out in the darkness exposed to the outbreak of elemental fury. There was now no sign of her husband or his companion. It was quite impossible to hear any sound they made, and she stood quivering, until, loosing her hold of the balustrade with an effort, she ran down the steps.
"Elcot!" she cried.
No answer reached her. She knew it was useless to call, but an overmastering fear came upon her as she remembered the mad flight of the terrified horses, and she ran on a few paces over the wet grass, crying out again. Then she was beaten back, gasping, with her hands raised in a futile attempt to shield her face and her dress driven flat against her, as a merciless shower of ice broke out of the darkness. It swept the veranda like the storm of lead from a volley, only it did not cease; crashing upon the balustrade and lashing the front of the house, while the very building seemed to rock in the savage blast. She staggered back before it, too dazedand bewildered to notice where she was going, until she struck the wall and cowered against the boards. There was a narrow roof above her, but it did not keep off much of the wind-driven hail, and she could not be sure that the whole of it was now standing. The veranda was wrapped in darkness, for the lamp had blown out.
She never remembered how long she stood there. For a time, every sense was concentrated on an effort to shelter her face from the hail which fell upon her thinly covered arms and shoulders like a scourge of knotted wire. Then, faint and breathless, she crept forward toward where she supposed the door must be, and staggered into the unlighted room. She struck a chair, and sank into it, to sit shivering and listening appalled to the cataclysm of sound.
Then a terror which had been driven out of her mind for the last few minutes crept back. Elcot was out amid the rush of hurtling ice; and she knew him well enough to feel certain that he would stay in the paddock until the horses were secured. She could picture him trying to guide the maddened beasts out between the slip-rails, heading them off from the perilous fence they rushed down upon at a terror-stricken gallop, or, perhaps, lying upon the hail-swept grass with a broken limb. It was horrible to contemplate, and she became conscious of a torturing anxiety concerning the safety of the man for whose comfort she had scarcely spared a thought since she married him.
Though it was difficult, she contrived to shut the door and window, and to relight the lamp, and then she glanced round the room. Elcot's paper had fallen to pieces and had been scattered here and there, while a longpile of hail lay melting on the floor. She could understand now why she felt bruised all over except where the fullness of her dress had protected her, for she had never seen hail like this in England. The jagged lumps were of all shapes, and most of them seemed the size of hazelnuts. Then she became conscious that her hair was streaming about her face and that her dress clung saturated to her limbs. This, however, appeared of no moment, for her anxiety about her husband was becoming intolerable.
Nerving herself for an effort, she moved toward the door. It was flung back upon her when she lifted the latch, and she staggered beneath the blow. Then, panting hard, she forced it to again and went back limply to her chair. It was utterly impossible for her to face that hail. She had the will to do so, and she was no coward, but the flesh she had pampered and shielded failed her, which was in no way astonishing. Wheat-growers, herders, police troopers, and, unfortunately, patient women learn that the body must be sternly brought into subjection to the mind by long repression before one can face wind-driven ice, snow-laden blizzard, or the awful cold which now and then descends upon the vast spaces of western Canada.
In a few more minutes the uproar subsided. The drumming on the walls and roof suddenly ceased and the wind no longer buffeted the house. The tumult receded in gradations of sinking sound, until at last there was silence, except for the drip from the veranda eaves. It was shortly broken by quick footsteps and Florence turned toward the door as Hunter came in.
His face showed where the hail had beaten it, for his hat had gone; the water ran from him, and one hand wasbleeding. He looked limp and exhausted, but what struck her most was the sternness of his expression.
"Are you hurt?" she asked.
Hunter glanced down at his reddened hand.
"Nothing to speak of. I got a rip from the fence somehow, and one leg's a little stiff; one of the horses must have kicked me. Guess I'll know more about it to-morrow."
"And the horses?"
"We managed to get them out. But what were you doing outside? Your dress is dripping."
Florence hesitated. It seemed extraordinary that while she had seldom felt the least diffidence in dealing as appeared expedient with any of the men she had known, she was unable to inform her husband that she had been driven into the storm by anxiety for his safety; but somehow she could not get the words out. She recognized that it had never occurred to him that she could have been actuated by any motive of this kind, though she was forced to own that, considering everything, this was no more than natural. The thought brought a half-bitter smile into her eyes.
"I was on the steps when the hail began, and I could scarcely get back into the house," she said. "Can it have done very much harm?"
Hunter made a gesture of dejection.
"That's a point I'm most afraid to investigate, and it can't be done to-night. In the meanwhile, hadn't you better get those wet things off?"
His preoccupied manner indicated that he was in no mood for conversation, and Florence left him standing moodily still. It was some minutes before he felt chilly and went upstairs to change his clothes, but he cameback almost immediately and took some papers and a couple of account books from a bureau. After this he lighted his pipe and sat down to make copious extracts, with a view to discovering how he stood. He had no great trouble in ascertaining his liabilities, for he was a methodical man, but it was different when he came to consider what he had to set off against them. He had counted on his wheat crop to leave him a certain surplus, but it now seemed unfortunately probable that there would be no harvest at all that year. Admitting this, he busied himself with figures in an attempt to discover how far it might be possible to convert what promised to be a crushing disaster into a temporary defeat, and several hours slipped by before any means of doing so occurred to him. His expenses had been unusually heavy, there were many points to consider and balance against each other, and a gray light was breaking low down on the rim of the prairie when at length he rose and thrust the books back into the bureau. The night's labor had at least convinced him that if he were to hold his own during the next twelve months it could be only by persistent effort and stern economy, and he had misgivings as to how his wife would regard the prospect of the latter.
On going out on to the veranda a few minutes later he was astonished to hear footsteps behind him, and when he turned and waited Florence came out of the doorway.
"I heard you moving and I came down," she said. "Are you going to look at the wheat?"
"Yes," replied Hunter. "I'm afraid there won't be very much of it to see."
The light was growing a little clearer and Florencenoticed the weariness of his face. He seemed to hold himself slackly and she had never seen him fall into that dejected attitude. The man was, however, physically jaded, for a day of severe labor had preceded the struggle in the paddock and the hours he had spent in anxious thought, and he had, as he was quite aware, a heavy blow to face.
"May I go with you?" she asked hesitatingly.
"Why?"
The question was not encouraging, nor was his manner, and Florence felt reluctant to explain that her request had been prompted by a desire to share his troubles. She was conscious that a statement to this effect would probably appear somewhat astonishing, as she had never offered to do anything of the kind hitherto.
"If you must have a reason, I'm as anxious to see what damage the hail has done as you are. It can't very well affect you without affecting me."
"Yes," agreed Hunter, "that's undoubtedly the case. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me and the homestead for the next twelve months. It's quite likely that there'll be very few new dresses, either."
Florence endeavored to keep her patience. It was not often that she felt in a penitent mood, and he did not seem disposed to make it any easier for her.
"Do you suppose new dresses are a matter of vital importance to me?" she asked.
"Well," answered Hunter, "since you put the question, several things almost lead me to believe it."
He turned abruptly toward the steps.
"If you are coming with me, we may as well go along."
They crossed the wet paddock together, and now andthen Florence glanced covertly at her husband's face. It was set and anxious, but there was no sign of surrender in it. She had, however, not expected to see the latter, for she knew that Elcot was one who could, when occasion demanded it, make a very stubborn fight.
At length they stopped and stood looking out across what at sunset had been a vast sea of tall, green wheat. Now it had gone down, parts of it as before the knife of a reaper, while the rest lay crushed and flung this way and that, as though an army had marched through it. Lush blades and half-formed ears were smashed into the mire and the odd clusters of battered stalks that stood leaning above the tangled chaos only served to heighten the suggestion of widespread ruin.
Florence watched her husband, but she did not care to speak, for there are times when expressions of sympathy are superfluous. When he walked slowly forward along the edge of the grain she followed him, without noticing that her thin shoes were saturated and her light skirt was trailing in the harsh wet grass. The ground rose slightly, and stopping when they reached the highest point he answered her inquiring glance.
"It looks pretty bad," he said. "Some of it—a very little—may fill out and ripen and we might get the binders through it, but the thing's going to be difficult."
"Will this hit you very hard, Elcot?"
Hunter turned and looked at her with gravely searching eyes, and she shrank from his gaze while a warmth crept into her face.
"Oh," she broke out indignantly, "I'm not thinking—now—of what I might have to do without. Still, I suppose it was only natural that you should suspect it."
The man's gesture seemed to imply that this was after all a matter of minor importance, and it jarred on her.
"Well," he answered, "I guess I can weather the trouble, though it will mean a long, stiff pull and a general whittling down of expenses. I spent most of last night figuring on the latter, and I've got my plans worked out, though it was troublesome to see where I was to begin."
Florence's heart smote her. Her allowance was a liberal one, but she knew it would only be when every other expedient had failed that he would think of touching that. It would have been a relief to tell him he could begin with it, but she remembered Nevis's loan. The thought of that loan was becoming a burden, and she felt that it must be wiped off somehow at any cost.
"Yes," she sympathized, "it must have been difficult. You don't spend much money unnecessarily, Elcot."
He did not answer, and she glanced at his hands, which were hard and roughened like those of a workman. There was an untended red gash which the fence had made across the back of one. Another glance at his clothing carried her a little farther along the same line of thought, for his garments were old and shabby and faded by the weather.
"Anyway," he said, apparently without having heeded her last observation, "I'm thankful I have no debts just now."
It was an unconscious thrust, but Florence winced, for it wounded her, and she began to see how Nevis had with deliberate purpose strengthened the barrier between her and her husband. What was more, she determined that the man should regret it. Why she had ever encouraged him she did not know, but there was no doubt that shewas anxious to get rid of him now. She would have made an open confession about the loan then and there, but the time was singularly inopportune. It was out of the question that she should add to her husband's anxiety.
"After all, it doesn't often hail," she encouraged him. "Another good year will set you straight again."
The man seemed lost in thought, but he looked up when she spoke.
"We can make a bid for it," he replied. "I must have bigger and newer machines. Like most of the rest, I've been too afraid of launching out and have clung to old-fashioned means. There will have to be a change and a clearance before next season."
It was very matter-of-fact, but Florence knew him well enough to realize what it implied. Defeat could not crush him; it only nerved him to a more resolute fight, for which he meant to equip himself at any sacrifice with more efficient weapons. Again she was conscious of a growing respect for him.
"I'm afraid I have been a drag on you, Elcot, but in this case you can count upon my doing—what I can."
He scarcely seemed to hear her, and she realized with a trace of bitter amusement that her assurance did not appear of any particular consequence to him.
"I have teams enough," he continued, picking up the course of thought where he had broken off. "Anyway, one should get something for the old machines."
Florence set her lips as they turned back toward the house. This was a matter in which she evidently did not count; but there was no doubt that in the light of past events the man's attitude was justified. It would be necessary to prove that he was wrong, and, with Nevis's loan still to be met, that promised to be difficult.
"Elcot," she said, "I don't think I've told you yet how sorry I am."
He looked at her in a manner which implied that his mind was still busy with his plans.
"Yes—of course," he replied.
Florence Hunter sat in her wagon in front of the grocery store at Graham's Bluff waiting until the man who kept it should bring out various goods she had ordered. Though a fresh breeze swept the surrounding prairie the little town was very hot, and it looked singularly unattractive with the dust blowing through its one unpaved street. In one place a gaily striped shade, which flapped and fluttered in the wind, had been stretched above the window of an ambitious store; but with this exception the unlovely wooden buildings boldly fronted the weather, with the sun-glare on their thin, rent boarding and the roofing shingles crackling overhead, as they had done when they had borne the scourge of snow-laden gales and the almost Arctic frost. They were square and squat, as destitute, most of them, of paint as they were of any attempt at adornment; and in hot weather the newer ones were permeated with a pungent, resinous smell.
Where Florence sat, however, the odors that flowed out of the store were more diffuse, for the fragrance of perspiring cheese was mingled with that of pork which had gained flavor and lost its stiffness in the heat, and the aroma of what was sold as coffee at Graham's Bluff. Florence, indeed, had been glad to escape from the store, which resembled an oven with savory cooking going on, though after all it was not a great deal better in thewagon. The dust was beginning to gather in the folds of her dainty dress, the wind plucked at her veil, and the fierce sun smote her face.
On the whole, she was displeased with things in general and inclined to regret that she had driven into the settlement, which she had done in a fit of compunction. Hitherto she had contented herself with sending the storekeeper an order for goods to be supplied, without any attempt to investigate his charges, but now, with Elcot's harvest ruined it had appeared her duty to consider carefully the subject of housekeeping accounts. She rather resented the fact that her first experiment had proved unpleasant, for she had shrunk from the sight of the slabs of half-melted pork flung down for her inspection, and having hitherto shopped only in England and eastern Canada she had found the naïve abruptness of the western storekeeper somewhat hard on her temper. Retail dealers in the prairie settlements seldom defer to their customers. If the latter do not like their goods or charges they are generally favored with a hint that they would better go somewhere else, and there is an end of the matter. It really did not look as if much encouragement was held out to those who aspired to cultivate the domestic virtues. At length the storekeeper appeared with several large packages.
"You want to cover this one up; it's the butter," he cautioned. "Guess you're going to have some trouble in keeping it in the wagon if the sun gets on to it. Better bring a big can next time, same as your hired man does."
The warning was justified, because when the inexperienced customer brings nothing to put it in, butter is usually retailed in light baskets made of wood, in spiteof the fact that it is addicted to running out of them in the heat of the day. The man next deposited a heavy cotton bag in the wagon, and while a thin cloud of flour which followed its fall descended upon Florence he laid his hands on the wheel and looked at her confidentially.
"I guess if your husband meant to let up on that creamery scheme you would have heard of it," he suggested.
"Yes," replied Florence; "I don't think he has any intention of doing so."
The man made a sign of assent.
"That's just what I was telling the boys last night. There were two or three of them from Traverse staying at the hotel, and when we got to talking about the hail they allowed that he'd have to cut the creamery plan out. I said that when Elcot Hunter took a thing up he stayed with it until he put it through."
His words had their effect on Florence. This, it seemed, was what the men who dealt with Elcot thought of him. After a few more general observations about the creamery her companion went back into his store, and as he did so Nevis came out of a house near by. He stopped beside her team.
"I didn't know you were in the settlement," he said, and his manner implied that had he been acquainted with the fact he would have sought her out.
Florence glanced at him sharply as she gathered up the reins. The man seemed disposed to be more amiable than he had shown himself on the last occasion, but she now cherished two strong grievances against him. He had cunningly saddled her with a debt which was becoming horribly embarrassing, and he had given her husband a hint that she had dealings of some kind withhim. As the latter course was, on the face of it, clearly not calculated to earn her gratitude, she surmised that he must have had some ulterior object in adopting it.
"I've been buying stores," she answered indifferently.
"That's a new departure, isn't it?" Nevis suggested. "You generally contented yourself with sending in for them."
Florence did not like his tone, and he seemed suspiciously well informed about her habits. This indicated that he had been making inquiries about her, and she naturally resented it. She disregarded the speech, however.
"I suppose you're here on business?"
"Yes," answered Nevis, and there was something significant in his manner; "I thought it wiser to look up my clients after the hail we had two nights ago. It's going to make things very tight for many of the prairie farmers."
"And a disaster naturally brings you on the field. Rather like the vultures, isn't it?"
She was about to drive on, but Nevis suddenly laid his hand on the rein.
"I think you ought to give me a minute or two, if only to answer that," he said with a laugh. "You compared me to a pickpocket not long ago, and I'm not prepared to own that you have chosen a very fortunate simile now."
"No? After the fact you mentioned it struck me as rather apposite; but I may have been wrong. The point's hardly worth discussing, and I'm going on to the hotel."
She had expected him to take the hint and drop the rein, but he showed no intention of doing so, and it suddenly dawned on her that he meant to keep her talking as long as possible. Everybody in the settlement who cared to look out could see them, and she had no doubt that the women in the place were keenly observant. It almost seemed as if he wished the fact that they had a good deal to say to each other to attract attention, with the idea that this might serve to give him a further hold on her. It was an opposite policy to the one he had pursued when she had driven him across the prairie some time ago, but the man had become bolder and more aggressive since then.
"Will you let that rein go?" she asked directly.
Nevis did not comply, and though he made a gesture of deprecation the look in his eyes warned her that he meant to let her feel his power.
"Won't you give me an opportunity for convincing you that I'm not like the vultures first? You see, they gather round the carrion, and I don't suppose you would care to apply that term to the farmers in our vicinity. Most of them aren't more than moribund yet."
It struck Florence that he was indifferent as to whether she took offense at this or not; and he was undoubtedly determined to stick fast to the rein. There were already one or two loungers watching them, and, if he persisted, she could not start the team without some highly undesirable display of force. The man, she fancied, realized this, and an angry warmth crept into her face. Then, somewhat to her relief, she saw Thorne strolling down the street behind her companion. He wore a battered, wide gray hat, a blue shirt which hung open at the neck, duck trousers and long boots, and though he was freely sprinkled with dust he looked distinctly picturesque. What was more to the purpose, he seemed to be regarding Nevis with suspicion, and she knew that he was a man of quick resource. In any case, the situation was becoming intolerable, and she flashed a quick glance at him. She fancied that he would understand it as an intimation that he was wanted, and the expectation was justified, for although she had never been gracious to him he approached a little faster. In the meanwhile Nevis, who had seen nothing of all this, talked on.
"There are, of course," he added, "people who are prejudiced against me; but on the other hand I have set a good many of the small farmers on their feet again."
"Presumably you made them pay for it?"
The man had no opportunity for answering this, for just then Thorne's hand fell heavily upon his shoulder.
"You here, Nevis?" he cried.
Nevis dropped the rein as he swung around and Florence wasted no time in starting her team. As the wagon jolted away down the rutted street Nevis, standing still, somewhat flushed in face, gazed at Thorne.
"Well," he demanded, "what do you want?"
Thorne leaned against the front of the store with sardonic amusement in his eyes.
"Oh," he replied, "it merely occurred to me that Mrs. Hunter wished to drive on. I thought I'd better point it out to you."
Nevis glanced at him savagely and then strode away, which was, indeed, all that he could do. An altercation would serve no useful purpose, and his antagonist was notoriously quick at repartee.
Thorne proceeded toward the wooden hotel and crossing the veranda he entered a long roughly boarded room, where he found Alison and Mrs. Farquhar as wellas Florence Hunter waiting for supper. Mrs. Farquhar told him that supper would be served to them before the regular customers came in for theirs. They chatted a while and then a young lad appeared in the doorway and stopped hesitatingly.
"I'm sorry if I'm intruding," he apologized. "I meant to have supper with the boys, and Symonds didn't tell me there was anybody in the room."
Thorne turned to Mrs. Farquhar, and she smiled.
"Then unless you would prefer to take it with the boys, Dave, there's no reason why you should run away," he said.
He led the lad toward Alison when Mrs. Farquhar had spoken to him.
"I think you will remember him, Miss Leigh. He's the young man who boiled the fowls whole at the raising."
Alison laughed and shook hands with him, but after a word or two with her he looked at Thorne significantly and moved a few paces toward the door.
"Did you know that Winthrop was in the neighborhood?" he whispered.
Alison still stood near them and Thorne fancied that she started slightly, which implied that she had overheard, though why the news should cause her concern was far from clear to him.