CHAPTER XXIGREGORY MAKES UP HIS MIND
Wheat was still being flung on to a lifeless market when Hawtrey walked out of the mortgage jobber’s place of business in the railroad settlement one bitter afternoon. He had a big roll of paper money in his pocket, and was feeling particularly pleased with himself, for prices had steadily fallen since he had joined in the bear operation Edmonds had suggested, and the result of it had proved eminently satisfactory. This was why he had just given Edmonds a further draft on Wyllard’s bank, with instructions to sell wheat down on a more extensive scale. He meant to operate in earnest now, which was exactly what the broker had anticipated, but in this case Edmonds had decided to let Hawtrey operate alone. Indeed, being an astute and far-seeing man, the broker had gone so far as to hint that caution might be advisable, though he had at the same time been careful to show Hawtrey only those market reports which had a distinctly pessimistic tone. Edmonds was rather disposed to agree with the men who looked forward to a reaction before very long.
Hawtrey glanced about him as he strode down the street. It was wholly unpaved, and deeply rutted, but the drifted snow had partly filled the hollows, and it did not look very much rougher than it would have appeared if somebody had recently driven a plow through it. Along both sides of it ran a rude plank sidewalk, raised a foot or two above the ground, so that foot-passengers might escape the mire of the thaw in spring. Immediately behind the sidewalk squat, weatherbeaten, frame houses, all of much the samepattern, rose abruptly. On some of the houses the fronts, carried up as high as the ridge of the shingled roof, had an unpleasantly square appearance. Here and there a dilapidated wagon stood with lowered pole before a store, but it was a particularly bitter afternoon, and there was nobody out of doors. The place looked desolate and forlorn, with a leaden sky hanging over it and an icy wind sweeping through the streets.
Hawtrey strode along briskly until he reached the open space which divided the little wooden town from the unfenced railroad track. It was strewn with fine dusty snow, and the huge bulk of the grain elevators towered high above it against the lowering sky. A freight locomotive was just hauling a long string of wheat cars out of a sidetrack. The locomotive stopped presently, and though Hawtrey could not see anything beyond the big cars, he knew by the shouts which broke out that something unusual was going on. He was expecting Sally, who was going east to Brandon by a train due in an hour or two.
When the shouts grew a little louder he walked around in front of the locomotive, which stood still with the steam blowing noisily from a valve, and he saw the cause of the commotion. A pair of vicious, half-broken bronchos were backing a light wagon away from the locomotive on the other side of the track, and a fur-wrapped figure sat stiffly on the driving seat. Hawtrey called out and ran suddenly forward as he saw that it was Sally who was in peril.
Just then one of the horses lifted its fore hoofs off the ground, and being jerked back by the pole plunged and kicked furiously, until the other horse flung up its head and the wagon went backward with a run. Then they stopped, and there was a series of resounding crashes against the front of the vehicle. Hawtrey was within a pace or two of the wagon when Sally recognized him.
“Keep off,” she cried, “you can’t lead them! They don’t want to cross the track, but they’ve got to if I pull the jaws off them.”
This was more forcible than elegant, and the shrill harshness of the girl’s voice jarred upon Hawtrey, though he was getting accustomed to Sally’s phraseology. He understood that she would not have his help, even if it would have been of much avail, which was doubtful, and he reluctantly moved back toward the group of loungers who were watching her.
“I guess you’ve no call to worry about her,” said one of the men. “She’s holding them on the lowest notch, and it’s a mighty powerful bit fixing. Besides, that girl could drive anything that goes on four legs.”
“Sure,” said one of the others. “She’s a daisy.”
Hawtrey was annoyed to notice that in place of being embarrassed Sally evidently rather enjoyed the situation, though several of the freight-train and station hands had now joined the group of loungers and were cheering her on. He had already satisfied himself that she had not a trace of fear. In another moment or two, however, he forgot his slight sense of disapproval, for Sally, sitting tense and strung up on the driving seat with a glow in her cheeks and a snap in her eyes, was wholly admirable. There was lithe grace, strength, and resolution in every line of her fur-wrapped figure. It is possible that her appearance would have been less effective in a drawing-room, but in the wagon she was in her place and in harmony with her surroundings. Lowering sky, gleaming snow, fur-clad men, and even the big, dingy locomotive, all fitted curiously into the scene, and she made an imposing central figure as she contended with the half-tamed team. Hawtrey was conscious of a tumult of emotion as he watched her.
The struggle with the team lasted for several minutes, during which the horses plunged and kicked again, until Sally stood boldly erect a moment while the wagon rocked to and fro. Her tall, straight figure was commanding and her face with a tress of loosened hair streaming out beneath her fur cap was glowing with excitement. Again and again she swung the stinging whip. Then it seemed that the team had had enough, for as she dropped lightly back into the seat the bronchos broke into a gallop, and in another moment the wagon, jolting noisily as it bounced across the track, vanished behind the locomotive. Gregory heard a shout of acclamation as he turned and hurried after it.
Sally drove right through the settlement and back outside it before she could check the horses, and she had just pulled them up in front of the wooden hotel when Hawtrey reached it. He stood beside the wagon holding up his hand to her, and Sally, who laughed, dropped bodily into his arms, which was, as he realized, a thing that Agatha certainly would not have done. He set Sally down upon the sidewalk, and when a man came out to take the team Hawtrey took her into the hotel.
“It was the locomotive that did it,” she explained. “They were most too scared for anything, but I hate to be beaten by a team. Ours know too much to try, but I got Haslem to drive me in. I dropped him at Norton’s, who’ll bring him on.”
“He oughtn’t to have left you with them,” said Hawtrey severely.
Sally laughed. “Well,” she replied, “I’d quit driving if I couldn’t handle any team you or Haslem could put the harness on.”
The hotels in the smaller prairie settlements offer one very little comfort or privacy. As a rule they contain twogeneral rooms, in one of which the three daily meals are served with a punctuality which is as unvarying as the menu. The traveler who arrives a few minutes too late for one meal must wait until the next is ready. The second room usually contains a rusty stove, and a few uncomfortable benches; and there are not infrequently a couple of rows of very small match-boarded cubicles on the floor overhead. The Occident was, however, a notable exception. For one thing, the building was unusually large, and its proprietor had condescended to study the requirements of his guests, who came from the outlying settlements. There were two rooms above the general lounging place on the first floor, one of which was reserved for the wives and daughters of the farmers who drove in long distances to purchase stores or clothing. In the other, dry-goods traveling men were permitted to display their wares, and privileged customers who wished to leave by a train, the departure of which did not correspond with the hotel arrangements, were occasionally supplied with meals.
It was getting dusk when Hawtrey and Sally entered the first of the two rooms, where the proprietor’s wife was just lighting the big lamp. The woman smiled at Gregory, who was a favorite of hers.
“Go right along, and I’ll bring your supper up in a minute or two,” she said. “I guess you’ll want it after your drive.”
Hawtrey strode on down a short corridor towards the second room, but Sally stopped behind him a moment.
“Is Hastings in town?” she asked. “I thought I saw his new wagon outside.”
“His wife is,” said the other woman. “She and Miss Ismay drove in to buy some things.”
Sally asked no further questions. It was evident that Mrs. Hastings would not start home until after supper,and as the regular hour meal would be ready in about half an hour it seemed certain that she would come back to the hotel very shortly. That left Sally very little time, for she had no desire that Hawtrey should meet either Mrs. Hastings or Agatha until she had carried out the purpose she had in hand. It was at Gregory’s special request that she had permitted him to drive in to see her off, and she meant to make the most of the opportunity. She had long ago regretted her folly in running away from his homestead when he lay helpless, but things had changed considerably since then.
When she entered the second room, she said nothing to Hawtrey about what she had heard. The room was cozily warm and brightly lighted, and the little table was laid for two with a daintiness very uncommon on the prairie. It was a change for Sally to be waited on and to have a meal set before her which she had not prepared with her own fingers, and she sank into a chair with a smile of appreciation.
“It’s real nice, Gregory,” she remarked. “Supper’s never quite the same when you’ve had to stand over the stove ever so long getting it ready.” She sighed. “When I have to do that after working hard all day I don’t want to eat.”
The man felt compassionate. Sally, as he was aware, had to work unusually hard at the desolate homestead where she and her mother perforce undertook a great many duties that do not generally fall to a woman. Creighton, who was getting to be an old man, was of a grasping nature, and hired assistance only when it was indispensable.
“Well,” Hawtrey responded, “I’m not particularly fond of cooking either.”
Sally glanced at him with a provoking smile, for he had given her a lead. “Then,” she asked with a coquettishraising of the eyebrows, “why don’t you get somebody else to do it for you?”
This was, as Gregory recognized, almost painfully direct, but there was no doubt that Sally looked very pretty with the faint flush of color in her cheeks and the tantalizing light in her eyes.
“As a matter of fact, that’s a thing I’ve been thinking over rather often the last few months,” he said, and he laughed. “It’s rather a pity you don’t seem to like cooking, Sally.”
Sally appeared to consider this. “Oh,” she said, “it depends a lot on who it’s for.”
Hawtrey became suddenly serious for a moment or two. There was no doubt that at one time he would have considered it impossible that he should marry a girl of Sally’s description, and even now he had misgivings. He had, however, almost made up his mind, and he was not exactly pleased that the proprietor’s wife came in with the meal, and stayed to talk a while.
When the woman went out he watched Sally with close and what he imagined was unobtrusive attention while she ate, and though he was aware of the indelicacy of his scrutiny, he was relieved to find that she did nothing that was actually repugnant to him. There was a certain daintiness about the girl, and her frank appreciation of the good things set before her only amused him. She was certainly much more companionable than Agatha had been since she came out to Canada, and her cheerful laughter had a pleasant ring.
When at last the meal was over Sally bade Gregory draw her chair up to the stove.
“Now,” she said, as she pointed to another chair across the room, “you can sit yonder and smoke. I know you want to.”
Hawtrey remembered that Agatha did not like tobacco smoke, and always had been inclined to exact a certain conventional deference which he had grown to regard as rather out of place upon the prairie.
“My chair’s a very long way off,” he objected.
Sally showed no sign of conceding the point as he had expected, and he took out his pipe. He wanted to think, for once more instincts deep down in him stirred in faint protest against what he almost meant to do. There were also several points that required practical consideration, and among them were his financial difficulties, though these did not trouble him so much as they had done a few months earlier. For a minute or two neither of them said anything, and then Sally spoke again.
“You’re worrying about something, Gregory,” she said.
Hawtrey admitted it. “Yes,” he replied, “I am. My place is a poor one, and when Wyllard comes home I shall have to go back to it again. Things would be so much easier for me just now if I had the Range.”
The girl looked at him steadily with reproach in her eyes.
“Oh,” she said, “your place is quite big enough if you’d only take hold and run it as it ought to be run. You could surely do it, Gregory, if you tried.”
The man’s resistance grew feebler, as it usually did when his prudence was at variance with his desires. Sally’s words were in this case wholly guileless, as he recognized, and they stirred him. He made no comment, however, and she spoke again.
“Isn’t it worth while, though there are things you would have to give up?” she asked. “You couldn’t go away and waste your money in Winnipeg every now and then.”
Hawtrey laughed. “No,” he admitted; “I suppose if I meant to make anything of the place that couldn’t bedone. Still, you see, it’s horribly lonely sitting by oneself beside the stove in the long winter nights. I wouldn’t want to go to Winnipeg if I had only somebody to keep me company.”
He turned towards her suddenly with decision in his face, and Sally lowered her eyes.
“Don’t you think you could get anybody if you tried?” she inquired.
“The trouble,” said Hawtrey gravely, “is that I have so little to offer. It’s a poor place, and I’m almost afraid, Sally, that I’m rather a poor farmer. As you have once or twice pointed out, I don’t stay with things. Still, it might be different if there was any particular reason why I should.”
He rose, and crossing the room, stood close beside her chair. “Sally,” he added, “would you be afraid to take hold and see what you could make of the place and me? Perhaps you could make something, though it would probably be very hard work, my dear.”
The blood surged into the girl’s face, and she looked up at him with open triumph in her eyes. It was her hour, and Sally, as it happened, was not afraid of anything.
“Oh!” she exclaimed; “you really want me?”
“Yes,” said Hawtrey quietly; “I think I have wanted you for ever so long, though I did not know it until lately.”
“Then,” she said, “I’ll do what I can, Gregory.”
“‘WOULD YOU BE AFRAID TO SEE WHAT YOU COULD MAKE OF THE PLACE AND ME?’”Page242
“‘WOULD YOU BE AFRAID TO SEE WHAT YOU COULD MAKE OF THE PLACE AND ME?’”Page242
Hawtrey bent his head and kissed her with a deference that he had not expected to feel, for there was something in the girl’s simplicity and the completeness of her surrender which, though the thing seemed astonishing, laid a restraint on him. As he sat down on the arm of her chair with a hand upon her shoulder, he was more astonished still, for she quietly made it clear that she expected a good deal from him. For one thing, he realized that she meanthim to take and to keep a foremost place among his neighbors, and, though Sally had not the gift of clear and imaginative expression, it became apparent that this was less for her own sake than his. She was, with somewhat crude forcefulness, trying to arouse a sense of responsibility in the man, to incite him to resolute action and wholesome restraint, and, as he remembered what he had hitherto thought of her, a salutary sense of confusion crept upon him.
She seemed to recognize it, for at length she glanced up at him sharply.
“What is it, Gregory? Why do you look at me like that?” she asked.
Hawtrey smiled in a perplexed fashion. Hitherto she had made her appeal through his senses to one side of his nature only. There was no doubt on that point, but now it seemed there were in her qualities he had never suspected. She had desired him as a husband, but it was becoming clear that she would not be content with the mere possession of him. Sally, it seemed, had wider ideas in her mind, and, though the idea seemed almost ludicrous, she wanted to be proud of him.
“My dear,” he faltered, “I can’t quite tell you—but you have made me heartily ashamed. I’m afraid it’s a very rash thing you are going to do.”
She looked at him with candid anxiety, and then appeared to dismiss the subject with a smile.
“There is so much I want to say, and it mayn’t be so easy—afterwards,” she said. “It’s a pity the train starts so soon.”
“We can get over that difficulty, anyway,” said Hawtrey. “I’ll come on as far as I can with you, and get back from one of the way stations by the Pacific express.”
Sally made no objections, and drawing a little closer to him she talked on in a low voice.
CHAPTER XXIIA PAINFUL REVELATION
A sprinkle of snow was driving down the unpaved street before the biting wind, when Mrs. Hastings came out of a store in the settlement and handed Sproatly, who was waiting close by, several big packages.
“You can put them into the wagon, and tell Jake we’ll want the team as soon as supper’s over,” she said. “We’re going to stay with Mrs. Ormond to-night, and I don’t want to get there too late.”
Sproatly took the parcels, and Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha, who stood a pace or two behind her with Winifred.
“Now,” she announced, “if there’s nothing else you want to buy we’ll go across to the hotel.”
They were standing in a big comfortless room in the hotel when Sproatly rejoined them.
“This place is quite shivery,” observed Mrs. Hastings. “They generally have the stove lighted in the little room along the corridor. Go and see, Jim.”
Sproatly went out. It happened that he was wearing rubber boots, which make very little noise. He proceeded along the dark corridor, and then stopped abruptly when he had almost reached a partly-open door, for he could see into a lighted room. Hawtrey was sitting near the stove on the arm of Sally’s chair.
Though he was not greatly surprised, Sproatly drew back a pace or two into the shadow, for it became evident that there were only two courses open to him. He couldjudiciously announce his presence by making the door rattle, and then go in and mention as casually as possible that Mrs. Hastings and Agatha were in the hotel. He felt that he ought to do it, but there was the difficulty that he could not warn Hawtrey without embarrassing Sally. Sproatly hesitated in honest doubt as it became evident that the situation was a delicate one. He decided on the alternative. He would go back quietly, and keep Mrs. Hastings out of the room if it could be done.
“I think you would be just as comfortable where you are,” he informed her when he joined the others.
“I’m rather doubtful,” declared Mrs. Hastings. “Wasn’t the stove lighted?”
“Yes,” answered Sproatly, “I fancy it was.”
“But I sent you to make sure.”
“The fact is, I didn’t go in,” said Sproatly uneasily. “There’s somebody in the room already.”
“Any of the boys would go out if they knew we wanted it.”
“Oh, yes,” acquiesced Sproatly. “Still, you see, it’s only a small room, and one of them has been smoking.”
Mrs. Hastings flashed a keen glance at him, and then smiled in a manner he did not like. It suggested that while she yielded to his objections she had by no means abandoned the subject.
“Well,” she said, “what shall we do until supper? This stove won’t draw properly, and I don’t feel inclined to sit shivering here.”
Then Sproatly was seized by what proved to be a singularly unfortunate inspiration.
“It’s really not snowing much, and we’ll go down to the depôt and watch the Atlantic express come in,” he suggested. “It’s one of the things everybody does.”
This was, as a matter of fact, correct. There are notmany amusements open to the inhabitants of the smaller settlements along the railroad track, and the arrival of the infrequent trains is a source of unflagging interest. Mrs. Hastings fell in with the suggestion, and Sproatly was congratulating himself upon his diplomacy, when Agatha stopped as they reached the door of the hotel.
“Oh,” she said, “I’ve only brought one of my mittens.”
“I’ll go back for the other,” responded Sproatly promptly.
“You don’t know where I left it.”
“Then I’ll lend you one of mine. It will certainly go on,” the man persisted.
Agatha objected to this, and Sproatly, who fancied that Mrs. Hastings was watching him, let her go, after which he and the others moved out into the street. Agatha ran back to the room they had left, and, finding the mitten, had reached the head of the stairway when she heard voices behind her in the corridor. She recognized them, and turned in sudden astonishment. Standing in the shadow she involuntarily waited. Not far away a stream of light from the door of the room shone out into the corridor. Next moment Hawtrey and Sally approached the door, and as the light fell upon them the blood surged into Agatha’s face, for she remembered the embarrassment in Sproatly’s manner, and that he had done all he could to prevent her from going back for the mitten.
Hawtrey spoke to Sally, and there was no doubt whatever that he called her “My dear.” Filled with burning indignation, Agatha stood still for a moment and they were almost upon her before she turned and fled precipitately down the stairway. She felt that this was horribly undignified, but she could not stay and face them. When she overtook the others she had recovered her outward composure,and they went on together toward the track. As yet she was conscious only of anger at Gregory’s treachery. That feeling possessed her too completely for her to be conscious of anything else.
Cold as it was, there were a good many loungers in the station, and Sproatly, who spoke to one or two of them, led his party away from the little shed where they loitered, and walked briskly up and down beside the track until a speck of blinking light rose out of the white wilderness. The light grew rapidly larger, until they could make out a trail of smoke behind it, and the roar of wheels rose in a long crescendo. Then a bell commenced to toll, and the blaze of a big lamp beat into their faces as the great locomotive came clanking into the station.
The locomotive stopped, and the light from the long car windows fell upon the groups of watching fur-clad men, while here and there a shadowy object that showed black against it leaned out from a platform. There was, however, no sign of any passengers for the train until at the last moment two figures appeared hurrying along. They drew nearer, and Agatha set her lips tight as she recognized them, for the light from a vestibule shone into Hawtrey’s face as he half lifted Sally on to one of the platforms and sprang up after her. Then the bell tolled again, and the train slid slowly out of the station with its lights flashing upon the snow.
Agatha turned away abruptly and walked a little apart from the rest. The thing, she felt, admitted of only one explanation. Sproatly’s diplomacy had had a most unfortunate result, and she was sensible of an intolerable disgust. She had kept faith with Gregory, at least as far as it was possible, and he had utterly humiliated her. The affront he had put upon her was almost unbearable.
In the meanwhile, Mrs. Hastings walked up to Sproatly, who, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, had drawn back judiciously into the shadow.
“Now,” she said, “I understand. You, of course, anticipated this.”
“I didn’t,” declared Sproatly with a decision which carried conviction with it. “I certainly saw them at the hotel, but how could I imagine that they had anything of the kind in view?”
He broke off for a moment, and waved his hand. “After all,” he added, “what right have you to think it now?”
Mrs. Hastings laughed somewhat harshly. “Unfortunately, I have my eyes, but I’ll admit that there’s a certain obligation on me to make quite certain before going any further. That’s why I want you to ascertain where he checked his baggage to.”
“I’m afraid that’s more than I’m willing to undertake. Do you consider it advisable to set the station agent wondering about the thing? Besides, once or twice in my career appearances have been rather badly against me, and I’m not altogether convinced yet.”
Mrs. Hastings let the matter drop, and they went back rather silently to the hotel. As soon as supper was past, Mrs. Hastings bade Sproatly get their wagon out and she drove away with Agatha. During the long, cold journey she said very little to the girl, and they had no opportunity of private conversation when they reached the homestead where they were to spend the night. Agatha hated herself for the thought in her mind, but everything seemed to warrant it, and it would not be driven out. She had heard what Gregory had called Sally at the hotel, and the fact that he must have bought his ticket and checked his baggage earlier in the afternoon when there was nobody about, so that he could run down with Sally at the last moment,evidently in order to escape observation, was very significant.
The two women went home next day, and on the following morning a man, who was driving in to Lander’s, brought Mrs. Hastings a note from Sproatly. It was very brief, and ran:
“Gregory arrived same night by Pacific train. It is evident he must have got off at the next station down the line.”
Mrs. Hastings showed it to her husband.
“I’m afraid we have been too hasty. What am I to do with this?” she said.
Hastings smiled. “Since you ask my advice, I’d put it into the stove.”
“But it clears the man. Isn’t it my duty to show it to Agatha?”
“Well,” said Hastings reflectively, “I’m not sure that it is your duty to put ideas into her mind when you can’t be quite certain that she has entertained them.”
“I should be greatly astonished if she hadn’t,” answered Mrs. Hastings.
Hastings made an expressive gesture. “Oh,” he remarked, “you’ll no doubt do what you think wisest. When you come to me for advice you have usually made up your mind, and you merely expect me to tell you that you’re right.”
Mrs. Hastings thought over the matter for another hour or two. For one thing, Agatha’s quiet manner puzzled her, and she did not know that the girl had passed a night in agony of anger and humiliation, and had then become conscious of a relief of which she was ashamed. There was, however, no doubt that while Agatha blamed herself in some degree for what had happened, she did feel as if a weight had been lifted from her heart. She was sittingalone in a shadowy room watching the light die off the snowy prairie outside, when Mrs. Hastings came softly in and sat down beside her.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Hastings, “it’s rather difficult to speak of, but that little scene at the station must have hurt you.”
Agatha looked at her quietly and searchingly, but there was only sympathy in her face, and she leaned forward impulsively.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “it hurt me horribly, because I feel it was my fault. I was the cause of it!”
“How could that be?”
“If I had only been kinder to Gregory he would, perhaps, never have thought of that girl. I must have made it clear that he jarred upon me. I drove him”—Agatha turned her face away, while her voice trembled—“into that woman’s arms. No doubt she was ready to make the most of the opportunity.”
Mrs. Hastings thought that the girl’s scorn and disgust were perfectly natural, even though, as it happened, they were not quite warranted.
“In the first place,” she suggested, “I think you had better read this note.”
Agatha took the note, and there was light enough left to show that the blood had crept into her face when she laid it down again. For almost a minute she sat very still.
“It is a great relief to know that I was wrong—in one respect, but you must not think I hated this girl because Gregory had preferred her to me,” she said at last. “When the first shock had passed, there was an almost horrible satisfaction in feeling that he had released me—at any cost. I suppose I shall always be ashamed of that.”
She broke off a moment, and her voice was very steady when she went on again:
“Still, what Sproatly says does not alter the case so much after all. It can’t free me of my responsibility. If I hadn’t driven him, Gregory would not have gone to her.”
“You consider that in itself a very dreadful thing?”
Agatha looked at Mrs. Hastings with suddenly lifted head. “Of course,” she answered. “Can you doubt it?”
Mrs. Hastings laughed, though there was a little gleam in her eyes, for this was an opportunity for which she had been waiting.
“Then,” she said, “you spoke like an Englishwoman—of station—just out from the Old Country—but I’m going to try to disabuse you of one impression. Sally, to put it crudely, is quite good enough for Gregory. In fact, if she had been my daughter I’d have kept him away from her. To begin with, once you strip Gregory of his little surface graces, and his clean English intonation, how does he compare with the men you meet out here? What does his superiority consist of? Is he truer or kinder than you have found most of them to be? Has he a finer courage, or a more resolute endurance—a greater capacity for labor, or a clearer knowledge of the calling by which he makes his living?”
Agatha did not answer. She could not protest that Gregory possessed any of these qualities, and Mrs. Hastings continued:
“Has he even a more handsome person? I could point to a dozen men between here and the railroad, whose clean, self-denying lives have set a stamp on them that Gregory will never wear. To descend to perhaps the lowest point of all, has he more money? We know he wasted what he had—probably in indulgence—and there is a mortgage on his farm. Has he any sense of honor? He let Sally believe he was in love with her before you even came out here, and of late, while he still claimed you, he has goneback to her. Can’t you get away from your point of view, and realize what kind of a man he is?”
Agatha turned her head away. “Ah!” she cried, “I realized him—several months ago. They were painful months to me. But you are quite sure he was in love with Sally before I came out?”
“Well,” Mrs. Hastings declared, “his conduct suggested it.” She laid a caressing hand on the girl’s shoulder. “You tried to keep faith with him. Tried desperately, I think. Did you succeed?”
Agatha contrived to meet the older woman’s eyes.
“At least, I would have married him.”
“Then,” asserted Mrs. Hastings, “I can forgive Gregory even his treachery, and you have no cause to pity him. Sally is simple—primitive, you would call her—but she’s clever and capable in all practical things. She will bear with Gregory when you would turn from him in dismay, and, when it is necessary, she will not shrink from putting a little judicious pressure on him in a way you could not have done. It may sound incomprehensible, but that girl will lead or drive Gregory very much further than he could have gone with you. She doesn’t regard him as perfection, but she loves him.”
Mrs. Hastings paused, and for several minutes there was a tense silence in the little shadowy room. It had grown almost dark, and the square of the window glimmered faintly with the dim light flung up by the snow.
Agatha turned slowly in her chair. “Thank you,” she said in a low voice. “You have taken a heavy weight off my mind.”
She paused a moment, and then added, “You have been a good friend all along. It was supreme good fortune that placed me in your hands.”
Mrs. Hastings patted her shoulder, and then went outquietly. Agatha lay still in her chair beside the stove. The fire snapped and crackled cheerfully, but except for the pleasant sound, there was a restful quietness. The room was cozily warm, though its occupant could hear a little icy wind wail about the building. It swept Agatha’s thoughts away to the frozen North, and she realized what it had cost her to keep faith with Gregory as she pictured a little snow-sheeted schooner hemmed in among the floes, and two or three worn-out men hauling a sled painfully over the ridged and furrowed ice. The man who had gone up into that great desolation had been endued with an almost fantastic sense of honor, and now he might never even know that she loved him. She admitted that she had loved him for several months.
CHAPTER XXIIITHROUGH THE SNOW
Next morning, the mail-carrier, who, half-frozen and white all over, drove up to the homestead out of a haze of falling snow, brought Agatha a note from Gregory. The note was brief, and Agatha read it with a smile of half-amused contempt, though she admitted that, considering everything, he had handled the embarrassing situation gracefully. This attitude, however, was only what she had expected, and she recognized that it was characteristic of Hawtrey that he had written releasing her from her engagement instead of seeking an interview. Gregory, as she realized now, had always taken the easiest way, and it was evident that he had not even the courage to face her. She quietly dropped the note—it did not seem worth while to fling it—into the stove.
Agatha could forgive Gregory for choosing Sally. Though she was very human in most respects, that scarcely troubled her, but she could not forgive him for persisting in his claim to her while he was philandering—and this seemed the most fitting term—with her rival. Had he only been honest, she would not have let Wyllard go away without some assurance of her regard which would have cheered the brave seafarer on his perilous journey. And it was clear to her that Wyllard might never come back again! Her face grew hard when she thought of it, and she had thought of it frequently. For that double-dealing she felt she almost hated Gregory.
A month passed drearily, with Arctic frost outside on the prairie, and little to do inside the homestead except tocook and gorge the stove, and endeavor to keep warmth in one’s body. Water froze solid inside the house, stinging draughts crept in through the double windows, and there were evenings when Mrs. Hastings and Agatha, shivering close beside the stove, waited anxiously for the first sign of Hastings and the hired man, who were bringing back a sled loaded with birch logs from a neighboring bluff. The bluff was only a few miles away, but men sent out to cut fuel in the awful cold snaps in that country have now and then sunk down in the snow with the life frozen out of them. There were other days when the wooden building seemed to rock beneath the buffeting of the icy hurricane, and it was a perilous matter to cross the narrow open space between it and the stables through the haze of swirling snow.
The weather moderated a little by and by, and one afternoon Mrs. Hastings drove off to Lander’s with the one hired man that they kept through the winter. Mr. Hastings had set out earlier for the bluff, and as the Scandinavian maid had been married and had gone away, Agatha was left in the house with the little girls.
It was bitterly cold, even inside the dwelling, but Agatha was busy baking, and she failed to notice that the temperature had become almost Arctic, until she stood beside a window as evening was closing in. A low, dingy sky hung over the narrowing sweep of prairie which stretched back, gleaming lividly, into the creeping dusk, but a few minutes later a haze of snow whirled across it and cut off the dreary scene.
The light died out suddenly, and Agatha and the little girls drew their chairs close up to the stove. The house was very quiet, and Agatha could hear the mournful wailing of the wind about it, with now and then the soft swish of driven snow upon the walls and roofing shingles.
The table was laid for supper, and the kettle was singing cheerfully upon the stove, but there was no sign of the other members of the family, and presently Agatha began to feel a little anxious. Mrs. Hastings, she fancied, would stay one night at Lander’s, if there was any unfavorable change in the weather, but she wondered what could be detaining Hastings. It was not very far to the bluff, and as he could not have continued chopping in the darkness it seemed to her that he should have reached the homestead.
He did not come, however, and she grew more uneasy as the time slipped by. The wail of the wind grew louder and the stove crackled more noisily. At last one of the little girls rose with a cry that she thought she heard the beat of hoofs. The impression grew more distinct until she was sure that some one was riding toward the homestead, and Agatha heard the hoofbeats, but soon after that the sound ceased abruptly, and she could not hear the rattle of flung-down logs which she had expected. This struck Agatha as curious, since she knew that Hastings generally unloaded the sled before he led the team to the stable. She waited a moment or two, but except for the doleful wind nothing broke the silence now, and when the stillness became oppressive she moved towards the door.
The wind tore the door from her grasp when she opened it, and flung it against the wall with a jarring crash, while a fine powder that stung the skin unbearably drove into her face. For a few moments she could see nothing but a whirling haze, and then, as her eyes became accustomed to the change of light, she dimly made out the blurred white figures of the horses standing still, with the load of birch logs rising a shapeless mass behind them. There seemed to be nobody with the team, and, though she twice called sharply, no answer came out of the falling snow.Then she recognized the significant fact that the team had come home alone.
It was difficult to close the door, and before she accomplished what was a feat of strength her hands had stiffened and grown almost useless, and the hall was strewn with snow. It was every evident that there was something for her to do. It cost her three or four minutes to slip on a blanket skirt, and soft hide moccasins, with gum boots over them. Muffled in her furs, she opened the door again. When she had contrived to close it, the cold struck through her to the bone as she floundered towards the team. There was nobody to whom she could look for assistance, but that could not be helped. It was evident that some misfortune had befallen Hastings and that she must act wisely and quickly.
The first thing necessary was to unload the sled, and, though the birches seldom grow to any size in a prairie bluff, some of the logs were heavy. She was gasping with the effort when she had flung a few of them down, after which she discovered that the rest were held up by one or two stout poles let into sockets. Try as she would, she could not get them out, and then she remembered that Hastings kept a whipsaw in a shed close by. She contrived to find it, and attacked the poles in breathless haste, working clumsily with mittened hands, until there was a crash and rattle as she sprang clear. Then she started the team, and the rest of the logs rolled off into the snow.
That was one difficulty overcome, but the next appeared more serious. She must find the bluff as soon as possible, and in the snow-filled darkness she could not tell where it lay. Even if she could have seen anything of the kind, there was no landmark on the desolate level waste between it and the homestead. She, however, remembered that she had one guide.
Hastings and his hired man had recently hauled in a great many loads of birch logs, and as they had made a well-worn trail it seemed to her just possible that she might trace it back to the bluff. No great weight of snow had fallen yet.
Before Agatha set out she had a struggle with the team, for the horses evidently had no intention of making another journey if they could help it, but at last she swung them into the narrow riband of trail, and plodded away into the darkness at their heads. It was then that she first clearly realized what she had undertaken. Very little of her face was left bare between her fur cap and collar, but every inch of uncovered skin tingled as if it had been lashed with thorns or stabbed with innumerable needles. The air was thick with a fine powder that filled her eyes and nostrils, the wind buffeted her, and there was an awful cold—the cold that taxes the utmost strength of mind and body of those who are forced to face it on the shelterless prairie.
Still the girl struggled on, feeling with half-frozen feet for the depression of the trail, and grappling with a horrible dismay when she failed to find it. She was never sure to what extent she guided the team, or how far from mere force of habit they headed for the bluff, but as the time went by, and there was nothing before her but the whirling snow, she grew feverishly apprehensive. The trail was becoming fainter and fainter, and now and then she could find no trace of it for several minutes.
The horses floundered on, blurred shapes as white as the haze they crept through, and at length she felt that they were dipping into a hollow. Then a faint sense of comfort crept into her heart as she remembered that a shallow ravine which seamed the prairie ran through the bluff. She called out, and started at the faintness of her voice. It seemed such a pitifully feeble thing. There was no answer,nothing but the soft fall of the horses’ hoofs and the wail of the wind, but the wind was reassuring, for the volume of sound suggested that it was driving through a bluff close by.
A few minutes later Agatha cried out again, and this time she felt the throbbing of her heart, for a faint sound came out of the whirling haze. She pulled the horses up, and as she stood still listening, a blurred object appeared almost in front of them. It shambled forward in a curious manner, stopped, and moved again, and in another moment or two Hastings lurched by her with a stagger and sank down into a huddled white heap on the sled. She turned back towards him, and he seemed to look up at her.
“Turn the team,” he said.
Agatha obeyed, and sat down beside him when the horses moved on again.
“A small birch I was chopping fell on me,” he said. “I don’t know whether it smashed my ankle, or whether I twisted it wriggling clear—the thing pinned me down. It is badly hurt anyway.”
He spoke disconnectedly and hoarsely, as if in pain, and Agatha, who noticed that one of his gum boots was almost ripped to pieces, realized part of what he must have suffered. She knew that nobody pinned to the ground and helpless could have withstood that cold for more than a very little while.
“Oh,” she cried, “it must have been dreadful!”
“I found a branch,” Hastings added. “It helped me, but I fell over every now and then. Headed for the homestead. Don’t think I could have made it if you hadn’t come for me!” He stopped abruptly, and turned to her. “You mustn’t sit down. Walk—keep warm—but don’t try to lead the team.”
Agatha struggled forward as far as the near horse’sshoulder. The team slightly sheltered her, and it was a little easier walking with a hand upon a trace. It was a relief to cling to something, for the wind that flung the snow into her face drove her garments against her limbs, so that now and then she could scarcely move. When her strength began to flag, every yard of the homeward journey was made with infinite pain and difficulty. At times she could scarcely see the horses, and again, blinded, breathless and dazed, she stumbled along beside them. She did not know how Hastings was faring, but she half-consciously recognized that if once she let the trace go the sled would slip away from her and she would sink down to freeze.
At last, however, a dim mass crept out of the white haze ahead, and a moment later a man laid hold of her. The man told her that Mrs. Hastings was with him, and that the homestead was close at hand. Agatha learned afterwards that they had reached the house a short time previously and had immediately set out in search of her and Hastings.
She floundered on beside the horses, with another team dimly visible in front of her, until a faint ray of light streamed out into the snow. Then the team stopped, and she had only a hazy recollection of staggering into a lighted room in the homestead and sinking into a chair. What they did with Hastings she did not know, but Mrs. Hastings, who went with her to her room, kissed her before she left her.
Nobody could have faced the snow next morning, and it was several days later when Watson, who had attended Hawtrey after his accident, was brought over. Watson did what he could, but it was several weeks before Hastings could use his injured foot again. Before Hastingsrecovered, news was sent him of some difficulty in the affairs of a small creamery at a settlement further along the line, in which he and his wife held an interest, and Mrs. Hastings went East to make inquiries respecting it. She took Agatha with her, and one evening after she had finished the business she had in hand they left a little way station by the Pacific train.
The car that they entered was empty except for two persons who sat close together near the middle of it. A big lamp overhead shed a brilliant light, and Agatha started when one of their fellow passengers looked around as she approached him. In another moment she stood face to face with Hawtrey, who had risen, while Sally gazed up at her with a curious expression in her eyes. Agatha was perfectly composed. She felt no sympathy for Hawtrey, who was visibly confused. She was not surprised that he found the situation a somewhat difficult one.
“You have been to Winnipeg?” she asked.
“No,” answered Hawtrey, with evident relief that she had chosen a safe topic, “only to Brandon. Sally has some friends there, and she spends a day or two with them once or twice each winter. Brandon is quite a lively place after the prairie. I went in last night to bring her back.” He turned to his companion, “I think you have met Miss Ismay?”
Agatha was conscious that Sally’s eyes were fixed upon her, and that Mrs. Hastings was watching them all with quiet amusement, but she was a little astonished when the girl moved some wraps from the seat opposite her.
“Yes,” she said, “I have. If Miss Ismay doesn’t mind, I should like to talk to her.”
Hawtrey’s relief was evident, and Agatha glanced at him with a smile that was half-contemptuous. He had carefullykept out of her way since he had written her the note, and now it seemed only natural that if there was anything to be said, he should leave it to Sally.
“I think I’ll go along for a smoke,” he observed with evident impatience to leave them, and he retired precipitately.
Mrs. Hastings looked after him, and laughed in a manner that caused Sally to wince.
“He doesn’t seem anxious to talk to me,” she said. “You can come along to the next car by and by, Agatha.”
She moved away, and Agatha, who sat down opposite Sally, looked at her questioningly.
“Well?” she said.
Sally made a little deprecatory gesture. “I’ve something to say, but it’s hard. To begin with, are you very angry with me?”
“No,” answered Agatha. “I think I really am a little angry with Gregory, but not altogether because he chose you.”
Sally considered this statement for a moment or two before she looked up again.
“Well,” she confessed, “not long ago, I wanted to hate you, and I guess I ’most succeeded. It made things easier. Still, I want to say that I don’t hate you now.” She hesitated a moment. “I’d like you to forgive me.”
Agatha smiled. “I can do that willingly,” she said.
Sally was disconcerted by her quiet ease of manner and perfect candor. It was evidently not quite what she had looked for.
“Then you were never very fond of him?” she suggested.
“No,” answered Agatha reflectively, “since you have compelled me to say it, I don’t think now that I ever wasreally fond of him, though I don’t know how I can make that quite clear to you. It was only after I came out here that I—realized—Gregory. It was not the actual man I fell in love with in England.”
Sally turned her face away, for Agatha had made her meaning perfectly plain. Somewhat to Sally’s astonishment, she showed no sign of resentment.
“Then,” Sally responded, “it is way better that you didn’t marry him.” She paused, and seemed to search for words with which to express herself. “I knew all along all there was to know about Gregory—except that he was going to marry you, and it was some time before I heard that—and I was ready to take him. I was fond of him.”
Agatha’s heart went out to her. “Yes,” she said simply, “it is a very good thing that I let him go.” She smiled. “That, however, doesn’t quite describe it, Sally.”
Gregory’s fiancée flushed. “I couldn’t have said that, but you don’t quite understand yet. I said I knew all there was to know about him—and you never did. You made too much of him in England, and when you came out here you only saw the things you didn’t like in him. Still, they weren’t the only ones.”
Agatha started at this statement, for she realized that part of it was certainly true, and she could admit the possibility of all of it being a fact. Gregory might possess a few good qualities that she had never discovered!
“Perhaps I did,” she admitted. “I don’t think it matters now.”
“They’re all of them mixed,” persisted Sally. “One can’t expect too much, but you can bear with a great deal when you’re fond of any one.”
Agatha sat silent a while, for she was troubled by a certain sense of wholesome confusion. It seemed to her thatSally had the clearer vision. Love had given her discernment as well as charity, and, not expecting perfection, it was the man’s strong points upon which she fixed her eyes.
“Yes,” she replied presently. “I am glad you look at it that way, Sally.”
The girl laughed. “Oh!” she said, “I’ve only seen one man on the prairie who was quite white all through, and I had a kind of notion that he was fond of you.”
Agatha sat very still, but it cost her an effort.
Her face asked the question that was in her heart.
“Harry Wyllard,” announced Sally.
Agatha made no answer, and Sally changed the subject. “Well,” said Sally, “after all, I want you to be friends with me.”
“I think you can count on that,” replied Agatha with a smile, as she rose to rejoin Mrs. Hastings.