Bright sunshine streamed down out of a cloudless sky when Vane stood talking with his sister upon the terrace in front of the Dene one afternoon shortly after his ascent of the Pike in Evelyn’s company. He leaned against the low wall, frowning, for Lucy had hitherto avoided a discussion of the subject which occupied their attention, and now, as he would have said, he could not make her listen to reason.
She stood in front of him, with the point of her parasol pressed firmly into the gravel, and her lips set, though there was a smile which suggested forbearance in her eyes. Lucy was tall and spare of figure; a year younger than her brother, and of somewhat determined character. She earned her living in a northern manufacturing town by lecturing on domestic economy for the public authorities. Vane understood that she also took part in Suffrage propaganda. She had a thin, forceful face, which was seldom characterised by repose.
“After all,” Vane broke out, “what I’ve been urging is a very natural thing. I don’t like to think of your being forced to work as you are doing, and I’ve tried to show that it wouldn’t cost me any self-denial to make you an allowance. There’s no reason why you should be at the beck and call of those committees any longer.”
Lucy’s smile grew plainer. “I don’t think that describes my position very accurately.”
“It’s possible,” Vane agreed with a trace of dryness. “No doubt you insist on the chairman or lady president giving way to you; but that doesn’t affect the question. You have to work, anyway.”
“But I like it, and it keeps me in some degree of comfort.”
The man turned half impatiently and glanced about him. The front of the old grey house was flooded with light, and the lawn below the terrace glowed luminously green. The shadows of the hollies and cypresses were thin and unsubstantial, but where a beach overarched the grass, Evelyn and Mrs. Chisholm, attired in light draperies, reclined in basket chairs. Carroll, who wore thin grey tweed, stood close by, talking to Mabel, and Chisholm sat a little apart upon a bench with a newspaper in his hand. He looked half asleep, and a languorous, stillness pervaded the whole scene.
“Wouldn’t you like this kind of thing as well?” he asked. “Of course, I mean what it implies—the power to take life easily and get as much enjoyment as possible out of it. It wouldn’t be difficult, if you would only take what I’d be glad to give you.” He indicated the languid figures in the foreground. “You could, for instance, spend your time among folks like these; and, after all, it’s what you were meant to do.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “I believe I’m more at home with the other kind of folks—those in poverty, squalor, and ignorance. I’ve an idea they’ve a stronger claim on me, but that’s not a point I can urge. The fact is, I’ve chosen my career, and there are practical reasons why I shouldn’t abandon it. I had a good deal of trouble in getting a footing, and if I fell out now, it would be harder still to take my place in the ranks again.”
“But you wouldn’t require to do so.”
“I can’t be sure. I don’t want to hurt you; but, after all, your success was sudden, and one understands that it isn’t wise to depend upon an income derived from mining properties.”
“None of you ever did believe in me.”
“I suppose there’s some truth in that; you really did give us some trouble. Somehow you were different—you wouldn’t fit in—though I believe the same thing applied to me, for that matter.”
“And now you don’t expect my prosperity to last?”
The girl hesitated, but she was candid by nature. “Perhaps I had better answer. You have it in you to work determinedly and, when it’s necessary, to do things that men with less courage would shrink from; but I doubt if yours is the temperament that leads to success. You haven’t the huckster’s instincts; you’re not cold-blooded enough. You wouldn’t cajole your friends or truckle to your enemies.”
“If I adopted the latter course, it would be very much against the grain,” Vane confessed.
Lucy laughed. “Well,” she said, “I mean to go on earning my living; but you can take me up to London for a few days and buy me some hats and things. Then I don’t mind you giving something to the Emancipation Society.”
“I don’t know if I believe in emancipation or not, but you can have ten guineas.”
“Thank you,” said Lucy, glancing round towards Carroll, who was approaching them with Mabel. “I’ll give you a piece of advice—stick to that man. He’s cooler and less headstrong than you are; he’ll prove a useful friend.”
Carroll came up just then. “What are you two talking about?” he asked. “You look animated.”
“Wallace has just promised me ten guineas to assist the movement for the emancipation of women,” Lucy answered pointedly. “I may mention that our society’s efforts are sadly restricted by the lack of funds.”
“He’s now and then a little inconsequential in his generosity,” Carroll rejoined. “I didn’t know he was interested in that kind of thing, but as I don’t like to be outdone by my partner, I’ll subscribe the same.”
“Thanks,” said Lucy, who made an entry in a pocket-book in a businesslike manner.
They strolled along the terrace together, and as they went down the steps to the lawn, Carroll inquired with a smile, “Have you tackled Chisholm yet?”
“I would have done so had it appeared likely to have been of any use, but I never waste powder and shot,” Lucy replied. “A man of his restricted views would sooner subscribe handsomely to put us down.”
Carroll turned to his comrade. “Are you regretting the ten guineas? You don’t look pleased.”
“No,” said Vane; “the fact is, I wanted to do something which wasn’t allowed. I’ve met with the same disillusionment here as I did in British Columbia.”
Lucy looked up at her brother. “Did you attempt to give somebody money there?”
“I did,” said Vane shortly. “It’s not worth discussing, and anyway she wouldn’t listen to me.”
They strolled on, Vane frowning, while Carroll, who had seen signs of suppressed interest in Lucy’s face, smiled unobserved. Neither he nor the others had noticed Mabel, who was following them.
They joined the rest, and some time afterwards, Mrs. Chisholm addressed Carroll, who was lying back in a deep chair with his eyes, which were half closed, turned in Lucy’s direction.
“Are you asleep, or thinking hard?” she asked.
“Not more than half asleep,” Carroll protested. “I was trying to remember ‘A Dream of Fair Women.’ It struck me as a suitable occupation for a drowsy summer afternoon in a place like this, but I must confess that it was Miss Vane who put it into my head. She reminded me of one or two of the heroines not long ago, when she was championing the cause of the suffragist.”
“You mustn’t imagine that English women in general sympathise with her, or that such ideas are popular at the Dene,” Mrs. Chisholm rejoined.
Carroll smiled reassuringly. “I wouldn’t have imagined the latter for a moment. But, as I said, on an afternoon of this kind one can be excused for indulging in romantic fancies; and don’t you see what brought those old-time heroines into my mind—I mean the elusive resemblance to their latter-day prototype?”
Mrs. Chisholm looked puzzled. “No,” she declared. “One of them was Greek, another early English, and the finest of all was the Hebrew maid. As they couldn’t even have been like one another, how could they have collectively borne a resemblance to anybody else?”
“That’s logical, on the surface. To digress, why do you most admire Jephthah’s daughter, the gentle Gileadite?”
His hostess affected surprise. “Isn’t it evident, when one remembers her patient sacrifice, her fine sense of family honour?”
Carroll felt that this was much the kind of sentiment one could have expected from her; and he did her justice in believing that it was genuine and that she was capable of acting up to her convictions. His glance rested on Vane for a moment, and the latter was startled as he guessed his comrade’s thought.
Evelyn sat near him, reclining languidly in a wicker chair. She had been silent and, now her face was in repose, the signs of reserve and repression were plainer than ever. There was, however, pride in it, and he felt that she was endowed with a keener and finer sense of family honour than her mother. Her brother’s career was threatened by the results of his own imprudence, and though her father could hardly be compared with the Gileadite warrior, there was, Vane imagined, a disturbing similarity between the two cases. It was unpleasant to contemplate the possibility of this girl’s being called upon to bear the cost of her relations’ misfortunes or follies. Carroll, however, looked across at Lucy with a smile.
“You don’t agree with Mrs. Chisholm?” he suggested.
“No,” said Lucy firmly. “Leaving the instance in question out, there are too many people who transgress and then expect somebody else—a woman as a rule—to serve as a sacrifice.”
“I don’t agree, either,” Mabel broke in. “I’d sooner have been Cleopatra or Joan or Arc—only she was burned, poor thing.”
“That was only what she might have expected. An unpleasant fate generally overtakes people who go about disturbing things,” Mrs. Chisholm said severely.
The speech was characteristic, and the others smiled. It would have astonished them had Mrs. Chisholm sympathised with the rebel idealist whose beckoning visions led to the clash of arms. Then Vane turned to his comrade.
“Aren’t you getting off the track?” he asked. “I don’t see the drift of your previous remarks.”
“Well,” said Carroll, with an air of reflection, “there must be, I think, a certain distinctive stamp upon those who belong to the leader type; I mean the folks who are capable of doing striking and heroic things. Apart from this, I’ve been studying you English—and it has struck me that there’s occasionally something imperious, or rather imperial, in the faces of your women in the most northern counties. I can’t define the thing, but it’s there—in the line of nose, the mouth, and I think most marked in the brows. It’s not Saxon, or Norse, or Danish. I’d sooner call it Roman.”
Vane was slightly astonished. He had seen that look in Evelyn’s face, and now, for the first time, he recognised it in his sister’s.
“I wonder if you have hit it,” he said with a laugh. “You can reach the Wall from here in a day’s ride.”
“The Wall?”
“The Roman Wall; Hadrian’s Wall. I believe one authority states they had a garrison of 100,000 men to keep it.”
Chisholm joined the group. He was a tall, rather florid-faced man with a formal manner, dressed immaculately in creaseless clothes.
“The point Carroll raises is interesting,” he remarked. “While I don’t know how long it takes for a strain to die out, there must have been a large civil population living near the wall, and we know that the characteristics of the Teutonic peoples, who followed the Romans, still remain.”
Nobody else had any comment to make, and when by and by the group broke up, Evelyn was left alone for a few minutes with Mabel.
“Gerald should have been sent to Canada instead of Oxford,” she said. “Then he might have got as rich as Wallace Vane and Mr. Carroll.”
“What makes you think they’re rich?” Evelyn asked with reproof in her tone.
“Oh!” said Mabel, “we all knew they were rich before they came, and they were giving Lucy guineas for the suffragists an hour ago. They must have a good deal of money to waste it like that. Besides, I think Wallace wanted her to take some more, and he seemed quite vexed when he said he’d tried to give money to somebody else in Canada, who wouldn’t have it. As he said—she—it must have been a woman—but I don’t think he meant to mention that. It slipped out.”
“You had no right to listen,” Evelyn retorted severely; but the information sank into her mind, and she afterwards remembered it.
Vane spent a month at the Dene with quiet satisfaction, and when at last he left for London and Paris he gladly promised to come back for another few weeks before he sailed for Canada. He stayed some time in Paris, because Carroll insisted on it, but it was with eagerness he went north again. For one reason—and he laid some stress upon this—he longed for the moorland air and the rugged fells, though he also admitted that Evelyn’s society enhanced their charm for him.
At last, shortly before setting out on the journey, he took himself to task and endeavoured to determine what his feelings towards her were, but he signally failed to elucidate the point. It was only clear that he was more contented in her presence, and that, apart from her physical comeliness, she had a stimulating effect upon his mental faculties, although so far as he could remember she seldom said anything remarkable. Then he wondered how she regarded him, and to this question he could find no answer. For the most part there was a reserve he found more piquant than deterrent about her, and he was conscious that while willing to talk with him freely she was still holding him off at arm’s length.
On the whole, he could not be absolutely sure that he desired to get much nearer. Though he failed to admit this clearly, his attitude was largely one of respectful admiration with a vein of compassion in it. Evelyn was unhappy, and out of harmony with her relatives, which he could understand more readily because their ideas often jarred on him.
He had been back at the Dene a fortnight, when one morning he walked out of the hamlet where the wheelwright’s shop was with a telegram in his hand. Sitting down on the wall of a bridge close by, he turned to Carroll, who had accompanied him.
“I think you have Nairn’s code in your wallet,” he said. “We’ll decipher the thing.”
Carroll laid the message upon a smooth stone and set to work with a pencil.
“‘Situation highly satisfactory,’” he read aloud, and commented: “It must be, if Nairn paid for another word; ‘highly’s’ not in the code.” Then he went on with the deciphering: “‘Result of reduction exceeds anticipations. Stock, 30 premium. Your presence not immediately required.’”
“That’s distinctly encouraging,” said Vane. “Now they’re getting farther in, the ore must be carrying more silver.”
“It’s fortunate. I ran through the bank account last night, and you have spent a lot of money. It confirms my opinion that you have expensive friends.”
Vane frowned at this, but Carroll continued undeterred: “You want pulling up after the way you have been indulging in a reckless extravagance, which I feel compelled to point out is new to you. The cheque drawn in favour of Gerald Chisholm rather astonished me. Have you said anything about it to his relatives?”
“I haven’t,” Vane answered shortly.
“Then, judging by the little I saw of him, I should consider it most unlikely that he has made any allusion to the matter. The next cheque was more surprising; I mean the one you gave his father.”
“They were both loans.”
“Have you any expectation of getting the money back?”
“What has that to do with you?”
Carroll spread out his hands. “Only this—I think you need looking after. We can’t stay here indefinitely. Hadn’t you better get back to Vancouver before your English friends ruin you?”
“I’ll go in three or four weeks, not before.”
Carroll sat silent a minute or two; and then he looked his companion squarely in the face.
“Is it your intention to marry Evelyn Chisholm?”
“I don’t know what has put that into your mind.”
“I should be astonished if it hadn’t suggested itself to her family,” Carroll retorted.
“I’m far from sure it’s an idea they’d entertain with any great favour. For one thing, I can’t live here.”
“Try them, and see. Show them Nairn’s telegram when you mention the matter.”
Vane swung himself down from the wall.
“It’s very possible that I may do so,” he informed his comrade. “But we’ll get along.”
His heart beat more rapidly than usual as they turned back towards the house, but he was perfectly composed when, some little time later, he sat down beside Chisholm, who was lounging away the morning on the lawn.
“I’ve been across to the village for a telegram I expected,” he announced. “The news is encouraging.”
He read it to Chisholm, who had determined on the line he meant to follow.
“You’re a fortunate man,” he said. “There’s probably no reasonable wish that you can’t gratify.”
“There are things one can’t buy with dollars,” Vane replied.
“That is very true. They’re often the most valuable. On the other hand, some of them may now and then be had for the asking. Besides, when one has a sanguine temperament, it’s difficult to believe that anything one sets one’s heart upon is quite unattainable.”
Vane wondered if he had been given a hint. Chisholm’s manner was suggestive and Carroll’s remarks had had an effect on him. He sat silent, and Chisholm spoke again: “If I were in your place, I should feel I had all I could desire within my reach.”
Vane was becoming sure that his comrade had been right. Chisholm would not have harped upon the same idea unless he had intended to convey some particular meaning, but the man’s methods roused Vane’s dislike. He could face opposition, and he would sooner have been discouraged than judiciously prompted.
“Then if I offered myself as a suitor for Evelyn, you would not think me presumptuous?” he said.
Chisholm was somewhat surprised at his abruptness, but he smiled reassuringly.
“No,” he said; “I can’t see why I should do so. You are in a position to maintain a wife in comfort, and I don’t think anybody could take exception to your character.” He paused a moment. “I suppose you have some idea of how Evelyn regards you?”
“I haven’t the faintest notion,” Vane confessed. “That’s the trouble.”
“Would you like me to mention the matter?”
“No,” said Vane decidedly. “In fact, I must ask you not to do anything of the kind. I only wished to make sure of your good will, and now I’m satisfied on that point, I’d sooner wait, and speak—when it seems judicious.”
Chisholm nodded. “Yes,” he said indulgently, “I dare say that would be wisest.”
Vane, who thanked him, waited. He fancied that the transaction, which seemed the best name for it, was not complete yet; but he meant to leave what should follow to his companion. He would not help the man.
“There’s a matter which had better be mentioned now, distasteful as it is,” Chisholm said at length. “I can settle nothing upon Evelyn. As you must have guessed, my affairs are in a far from promising state. Indeed, I’m afraid I may have to ask your indulgence when the loan falls due, and I don’t mind confessing that the prospect of Evelyn’s making what I think is a suitable marriage is a relief to me.”
Vane’s feelings were somewhat mixed, but contempt figured prominently among them. He could find no fault with Chisholm’s desire to safeguard his daughter’s future, but he was convinced that the man looked for more than this. He felt he had been favoured with a delicate hint, to which his companion expected an answer.
“Well,” he said curtly, “you need not be concerned about the loan. To go a little farther, I should naturally take an interest in the welfare of my wife’s relatives. I don’t think I can say anything more in the meanwhile.”
He knew that he might have spoken more plainly without offence, when he saw Chisholm’s smile, but the latter looked satisfied.
“Those are the views I expected you to hold,” he declared. “I believe Mrs. Chisholm will share my gratification if you find Evelyn disposed to listen to you.”
Vane left him shortly afterwards with a sense of shame. He felt he had bought the girl and that, if she ever heard of it, she would find it hard to forgive him for the course he had taken. By and by he met Carroll, who looked at him inquiringly.
“I’ve had a talk with Chisholm,” said Vane. “It has upset my temper—I feel mean. There’s no doubt that you were right.”
Carroll smiled and showed that he could guess what was in his comrade’s mind. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the thing,” he replied. “The girl probably understands the situation. It’s not pleasant, but I expect she’s more or less resigned to it. She can’t help herself.”
Vane gazed at him with anger. “Does that make it any better? Is it any comfort to me?”
“Take her out of it. If she has any liking for you, she’ll thank you for doing so afterwards.”
Vane, who made no answer, strode away, and nobody saw any more of him for an hour or two.
He had her father’s consent, but he felt he could not plead his cause with Evelyn just then. With her parents on his side, she was at a disadvantage, and he shrank from the thought that she might be forced upon him against her will. This was not what he desired, and she might hate him for it afterwards. She was very alluring; there had been signs of an unusual gentleness in her manner, but he wanted time to win her favour, aided only by such gifts as he had been endowed with. It cost him a determined effort, but he made up his mind to wait.
A week or two had slipped away since Vane’s eventful interview, when he lounged upon the terrace after breakfast chatting with Carroll.
Suddenly a long, faint howl came up the valley, and was answered by another in a deeper note. Then a confused swelling clamour, which slightly resembled the sound of chiming bells, broke out, softened by the distance. Carroll stopped and listened.
“What in the name of wonder is that?” he asked. “The first of it reminded me of a coyote howling, but the rest’s more like the noise the timber wolves make in the bush at night.”
“You haven’t made a bad shot,” Vane laughed. “It’s a pack of otter hounds hot upon the scent.”
The sound ceased as suddenly as it had begun, but a few moments later Mabel came running towards the men.
“I knew the hounds met at Patten Brig, but Jim was sure they’d go down-stream,” she cried breathlessly. “They’re coming up, and I think they’re at the pool below the village. Get two poles—you’ll find some in the tool-shed—and come along at once.”
She clambered into the house through a window, calling for Evelyn, and Carroll smiled.
“We have our orders,” he remarked. “I suppose we’d better go.”
“It’s one of the popular sports up here,” said Vane. “You may as well see it.”
They set out a few minutes later, accompanied by Evelyn, while Mabel hurried on in front and reproached them for their tardiness.
At length, after crossing several wet fields, they came into a rushy meadow on the edge of the river, which spread out into a wide pool, fringed with alders which had not yet lost their leaves and the barer withes of osiers. There was a swift stream at the head of it, and a long rippling shallow at the tail, and a very mixed company was scattered along the bank and in the water.
A red-coated man with whip and horn stood in the tail outflow, and three or four more with poles in their hands were spread out across the stream behind him. These and one or two in the head stream appeared by their dress to belong to the hunt, but the rest, among whom were a few women, were attired in everyday garments and of different walks in life: artisans, labourers, people of leisure, and a belated tourist or two.
Three or four big hounds were swimming aimlessly up and down the pool; a dozen more or thereabouts trotted to and fro along the water’s edge, stopping to sniff and give tongue in an uncertain manner now and then; but there was no sign of an otter.
Carroll looked round with a smile when his companions stopped. “There’ll be very little work done in this neighbourhood to-day,” he said. “I’d no idea there were so many folks in the valley with time to spare. The only thing that’s missing is the beast they’re after.”
“An otter is an almost invisible creature,” Evelyn explained, “You very seldom see one, unless it’s hard pressed by the dogs. There are a good many in the river, but even the trout fishers, who are about at sunrise in the hot weather and wade in the dusk, rarely come across them. Are you going to take a share in the hunt?”
“No,” replied Carroll, glancing humorously at his pole. “I don’t know what I brought this thing for, unless it was because Mopsy sent me for it. I’d sooner stay and watch with you. Splashing through a river after a little beast which I don’t suppose they’d let an outsider kill doesn’t interest me, and I don’t see why I should want to kill it, anyway. Some of you English people have sporting ideas I can’t understand. I struck a young man the other day—a well-educated man by the look of him—who was spending the afternoon happily with a ferret by a corn stack, killing rats with a club. He seemed uncommonly pleased with himself because he’d got four of them.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mabel, “you’re as bad as the silly people who call killing things cruelty. I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”
“I’ve seen him,” said Vane, “drop a deer going almost as fast as a locomotive through thick brush, with a single-shot rifle, and I believe he once assisted in killing a panther in a thicket you couldn’t see two yards ahead in. The point is, that he meant to eat the deer, and the panther had been taking a rancher’s hogs.”
“Then I’m sorry I brought him,” said Mabel decidedly. “He’s not a sportsman.”
“I really think there’s some excuse for the more vigorous sports,” Evelyn declared. “Of course, you can’t eliminate a certain amount of cruelty; but admitting that, isn’t it just as well that men who live in a luxurious civilisation should be willing to plod through miles of heather after grouse, risk their limbs on horseback, or spend hours in cold water? These are bracing things; they imply moral discipline. It can’t be nice to ride at a dangerous fence, or flounder down a rapid after an otter when you’re stiff with cold. The effort to do so must be wholesome.”
“A sure thing,” Carroll agreed. “The only drawback is that when you’ve got your fox or otter, it isn’t worth anything. A good many of the folks in the newer lands have to make something of the kind of effort you described every day. In their case, the results are waggon-trails, valleys cleared for orchards, new branch railroads. I suppose it’s a matter of opinion, but if I’d put in a season’s risky work I’d sooner have a piece of land to grow fruit on, or a share in a mineral claim—you get plenty of excitement in prospecting—than a fox’s tail. But there are people in Canada who wouldn’t agree with me.”
He strolled along the water’s edge with Evelyn, and presently looked round.
“Mopsy’s gone, and I don’t see Vane,” he said.
“After all, he’s one of us. If you’re born in the North Country, it’s hard to keep out of the river when you hear the otter hounds.”
They took up their station behind a growth of alders, and for a while the dogs went trotting by in twos and threes or swam about the pool, but nothing else broke the surface of the leaden-coloured water. Then there was a cry, an outbreak of shouting, a confused baying, and half a dozen hounds dashed past. Evelyn stretched out her hand.
“Look!” she said.
Carroll saw a small grey spot—the top of the otter’s head—moving across the slacker part of the pool, with a very slight, wedge-shaped ripple trailing away from it. It sank next moment; a bubble or two rose, and then there was nothing but the smooth flow of water.
A horn called shrilly, a few whip-cracks rang out like pistol shots, and the dogs took to the water, swimming slowly here and there. Men scrambled along the bank and while some, entering the river, reinforced the line spread out across the head rapid, others joined the second row, wading steadily up-stream, and splashed about as they advanced with iron-tipped poles. Nothing rewarded their efforts; the dogs turned and went down-stream; and then suddenly everybody ran or waded towards the tall outflow. A clamour of shouting and baying broke out, and floundering men and swimming dogs went down the stream together in a confused mass. Then there was silence, and the hounds came out and trotted to and fro along the bank, up which dripping men clambered after them. Evelyn laughed as she pointed to Vane, who looked wetter than most, among the leading group.
“I don’t suppose he meant to go in. It’s in the blood,” she said.
“There’s no reason why he shouldn’t, if it amuses him,” Carroll replied.
A little later, the dogs were driven in again, and this time the whole of the otter’s head was visible as it swam, up-stream. The animal was flagging, and on reaching shoaler water it sprang out altogether now and then, rising and falling in the stronger stream with a curious serpentine motion. In fact, as head and body bent in the same sinuous curves, it looked less like an animal than a plunging fish. The men guarding the rapid stood ready with their poles, and more were wading and splashing up both sides of the pool. The otter’s pace was getting slower; sometimes it seemed to stop, and now and then it vanished among the ripples. Carroll saw that Evelyn’s face was intent, though there were signs of shrinking in it.
“Now,” he said, “I’ll tell you what you are thinking—you want that poor little beast to get away.”
“I believe I do,” Evelyn confessed.
They watched with strained attention. The girl could not help it, though, she dreaded the climax. Her sympathies were now with the hard pressed, exhausted creature that was making a desperate fight for life. The pursuers were close behind it, the swimming dogs leading them; and ahead lay a foaming rush of water which did not seem more than a foot deep with men spread out across it. The shouting from the bank had ceased, and everybody waited in tense expectancy, when the otter disappeared.
The dogs reached the rapid, where they were washed back a few yards before they could make head up-stream. Men who came splashing close upon their tails left the river to scramble along its edge; and then stopped abruptly, while the dogs swam in an uncertain manner about the still reach beyond. They came out in a few minutes, and scampered up and down among the stones, evidently at fault, for there was no sign of the otter anywhere. The hunted creature had crept up the rush of water among the feet of those who watched for it, and vanished unseen into the sheltering depths beyond.
Evelyn sighed with relief. “I think it will escape,” she said. “The river’s rather full after the rain, which is against the dogs, and there isn’t another shallow for some distance. Shall we go on?”
They strolled forward behind the dogs, which were again moving up-stream; but they turned aside to avoid a wood, and it was some time later when they came out upon a rocky promontory dropping steeply to the river. The hunt was now widely scattered about the reach. Men crept along slippery ledges above the water, and moved over steeply-slanting slopes, half hidden among the trees.
A few were in the river, and three or four of the dogs were swimming; the rest, spread out in twos and threes, trotted to and fro among the undergrowth, Carroll did not think they were following any scent, but a figure creeping along the foot of the rock not far away presently seized his attention.
“It’s Mopsy,” he said. “The foothold doesn’t look very safe among those stones, and there seems to be deep water below.”
He called out in warning, but the girl did not heed. The willows were thinner at the spot she had reached, and, squeezing herself through them, she leaned down, clinging to an alder branch.
“He’s gone to holt among the roots,” she cried.
Three or four men came running along the opposite bank and apparently decided that she was right, for the horn was sounded and here and there a dog broke through the underbrush; then, just as the first-comers reached the rapid, there was a splash. It was a moment or two before Evelyn or Carroll, who had been watching the dogs, realised what had happened, and then the blood ebbed from the girl’s face. Mabel had disappeared.
Running a few paces forward, Carroll saw what looked like a bundle of spread-out garments swing round in an eddy. It washed in among the willows, and he heard a faint cry.
“Somebody help me, quick; I’ve caught a branch.”
He could not see the girl now, but an alder bough was bending sharply, and he flung a rapid glance around him. The summit of the rock he stood upon rose above the trees, and though he would have faced the risky fall had there been a better landing, it seemed impossible to alight among the stones without a broken leg. Further down-stream he might reach the water by a reckless jump, because the promontory sloped towards it there; but he would not be able to swim back against the current. His position was a painful one; it looked as if there was nothing that he could do.
Next moment men and dogs went scrambling and swimming down the rapid; but they were in hot pursuit of the otter, which had left its hiding-place, and it was evident that the girl had escaped their attention. Carroll shouted savagely as his comrade appeared among the tail of the hunt below. The others were too occupied to heed, or perhaps concluded that he was urging them on; but Vane, who was in the water, seemed to understand. In another few minutes he was swimming down the pool along the edge of the alders. Then Carroll saw that Evelyn expected him to take some part in the rescue.
“Get down before it’s too late!” she cried.
Carroll spread out his hands, as if to beg her forbearance, and while every impulse urged him to the leap he endeavoured to keep his head.
“I can’t do any good just now,” he answered, knowing he was right and yet feeling horribly ashamed. “She’s holding on, and Wallace will reach her in a moment or two.”
Evelyn broke out on him in an agony of fear and anger. “You coward!” she cried. “Will you let her drown?”
She turned and ran forward, but Carroll, dreading that she meant to attempt the descent, seized her shoulder and held her fast. While he grappled with her, Vane’s voice rose from below, and he let his hands drop.
“Wallace has her! There’s no more danger,” he said.
Evelyn suddenly recovered some degree of calm.
Standing, breathless, a pace or two apart, they saw Vane and the girl appear from beneath the willows and wash away down-stream. The man was swimming but he was hampered by his burden, and once he and Mabel sank almost from sight in a whirling eddy. Carroll said nothing, but he turned and ran along the sloping ridge, until where the fall was less and the trees were thinner he leaped out into the air. He broke through the alders amidst a rustle of bending boughs and disappeared; but a moment later his head rose out of the water close beside Vane, and the two men went down-stream with Mabel between them.
Evelyn scrambled wildly along the ridge, and when she reached the foot of it Vane was helping Mabel up the sloping bank of gravel. The girl’s drenched garments clung about her, her wet hair was streaked across her face; but she seemed able to stand, and she was speaking in jerky gasps. The hunt had swept on through shoaler water, but there was a cheer from the stragglers across the river. Evelyn clutched her sister, half laughing, half sobbing, and incoherently upbraided her. Mabel shook herself free, and her first remark was characteristic.
“Oh!” she said, “don’t make a silly fuss.” Then she tried to shake out her dripping skirt. “I’m only wet through, Wallace, take me home.”
Vane picked her up, which was what she seemed to expect, and the others followed when he pushed through the underbush towards a neighbouring meadow. Evelyn, however, was still a little unnerved, and when they reached a gap in a wall she stopped, and leaning against the stones turned to Carroll.
“I think I’m more disturbed than Mopsy is,” she said. “What I felt must be some excuse for me. I’m sorry for what I said; it was unjustifiable.”
“Anyway, it was perfectly natural; but I must confess that I felt some temptation to make a fool of myself. I might have jumped into those alders, but it’s most unlikely that I could have got out of them.”
Evelyn looked at him with a faint respect. She had not troubled to point out that he had not flinched from the leap, when it seemed likely to be of service.
“How had you the sense to think of that?” she asked.
“I suppose it’s a matter of practice,” Carroll answered with amusement. “One can’t work among the ranges and rivers without learning to make the right decision rapidly. When you don’t, you get badly hurt. The thing has to be cultivated, it’s not instinctive.”
Evelyn was struck by the explanation. This acquired coolness was a finer thing, and undoubtedly more useful than hot-headed gallantry, though she admired the latter.
“Wallace was splendid in the water,” she broke out, uttering part of her thoughts aloud.
“I thought rather more of him in the city,” Carroll replied. “That kind of thing was new to him, and I’m inclined to believe I’d have let the folks he had to negotiate with have the mine for a good deal less than what he eventually got for it. But I’ve said something about that before, and after all I’m not here to play Boswell.”
The girl was surprised at the apt allusion; it was not what she would have expected from the man. Since she had not recovered her composure, she forgot what Vane had told her about him, and her comment was an incautious one. “How did you hear of him?”
Carroll parried this with a smile.
“Oh!” he said, “you don’t suppose you can keep those old fellows to yourselves—they’re international. But hadn’t we better be getting on? Let me help you through the gap.”
They reached the Dene some time later, and Mabel, very much against her wishes, was sent to bed, while shortly afterwards Carroll came across Vane, who had changed his clothes, strolling up and down among the shrubberies.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
Vane looked embarrassed. “For one thing, I’m keeping out of Mrs. Chisholm’s way; she’s inclined to be effusive. For another, I’m trying to decide what I ought to do. We’ll have to pull out very shortly, and I had meant to have had an interview with Evelyn to-day. That’s why I feel uncommonly annoyed with Mopsy for falling in.”
Carroll made a grimace. “If that’s how it strikes you, any advice I could offer would be wasted. A sensible man would consider it a promising opportunity.”
“And trade upon it.”
“Do you really want the girl?”
“That impression’s firmly in my mind,” said Vane, curtly.
“Then you had better pitch your quixotic notions overboard, and tell her so.”
Vane made no answer, and Carroll, seeing that his comrade was not inclined to be communicative, left him.
Dusk was drawing on when Vane strolled along the terrace in front of the Dene.
He was preoccupied and eager, but fully aware of the need for coolness, because it was very possible that he might fail in the task he had in hand. By and by he saw Evelyn, whom he had been waiting for, cross the opposite end of the terrace, and moving forward he joined her at the entrance to a shrubbery walk. A big, clipped yew with a recess in which a seat had been placed stood close by.
“I’ve been sitting with Mopsy,” said Evelyn. “She seems very little the worse for her adventure—thanks to you.” She hesitated, and her voice grew softer. “I owe you a heavy debt—I am very fond of Mopsy.”
“It’s a great pity she fell in,” Vane declared.
Evelyn looked at him with surprise. She scarcely thought he could regret the efforts he had made on her sister’s behalf, but that was what his words implied.
“The trouble is that the thing might seem to give me some claim on you, and I don’t want that,” he explained. “It cost me no more than a wetting; I hadn’t the least difficulty in getting her out.”
His companion was still puzzled. She could find no fault with him for being modest about his exploit, but that he should make it clear that he did not require her gratitude seemed to her unnecessary.
“For all that, you did bring her out,” she persisted.
“I don’t seem to be beginning very fortunately,” Vane replied. “What I mean is, that I don’t want to urge my claim, if I have one. I’d sooner be taken on my merits.” He paused a moment with a smile. “That’s not much better, is it? But it partly expresses what I feel. Leaving Mopsy out altogether, let me try to explain—I don’t wish you to be influenced by anything except your own idea of me. I’m saying this because one or two points that seem in my favour may have a contrary effect.”
Evelyn made no answer, and he indicated the seat. “Won’t you sit down, I have something more to say.”
The girl did as he suggested, and his smile faded. “Now,” he went on, “you won’t be astonished if I ask if you will marry me?”
He stood looking down on her with an impressive steadiness of gaze. She could imagine him facing the city men, from whom he had extorted the full value of his mine, in the same fashion, and in a later instance, so surveying the eddies beneath the osiers when he had gone to Mabel’s rescue. She felt that they had better understand one another.
“No,” she said; “if I must be candid, I am not astonished.” Then the colour crept into her cheeks, is she met his gaze. “I suppose it is an honour and it is undoubtedly a—temptation.”
“A temptation?”
“Yes,” said Evelyn, mustering her courage to face a crisis she had dreaded. “It is only due to you that you should hear the truth—though I think you suspect it. I have some liking for you.”
“That is what I wanted you to own,” Vane broke in.
She checked him with a gesture. Her manner was cold, and yet there was something in it that stirred him more than her beauty.
“After all,” she answered, “It does not go very far, and you must try to understand. I want to be quite honest, and what I have to say is—difficult. In the first place, things are far from pleasant for me here; I was expected to make a good marriage, and I had my chance in London; I refused to profit by it, and now I’m a failure. I wonder if you can realise what a temptation it is to get away.”
“Yes,” he said; “it makes me savage to think of it. I can, at least, take you out of all this. If you hadn’t had a very fine courage, you wouldn’t have told me.”
Evelyn smiled a curious wry smile.
“It has only prompted me to behave, as most people would consider, shamelessly; but there are times when one must get above that point of view. Besides, there’s a reason for my candour. Had you been a man of different stamp, it’s possible that I might have been driven into taking the risk. We should both have suffered for a time, but through open variance we might have reached an understanding—not to intrude on one another. As it is, I could not do you that injustice, and I should shrink from marrying you with only a little cold liking.”
The man held himself firmly in hand. Her calmness had infected him, and he felt that this was not an occasion for romantic protestations, even had he felt capable of making them, which was not the case. As a matter of fact, such things were singularly foreign to his nature.
“Even that would go a long way with me, if I could get nothing better,” he declared. “Besides, you might change. I could surround you with some comfort; I think I could promise not to force my company upon you; I believe I could be kind.”
“Yes,” assented Evelyn; “I shouldn’t be afraid of harshness from you; but it seems impossible that I should change. You must see that you started handicapped from the beginning. Had I been free to choose, it might have been different; but I have lived for some time in shame and fear, hating the thought that some one would be forced on me.”
He said nothing, and she went on. “Must I tell you? You are the man.”
His face grew hard and for a moment he set his lips tight. It would have been a relief to express his feelings concerning his host just then.
“If you don’t hate me for it now, I’m willing to take the risk,” he said at length. “It will be my fault if you hate me in the future; I’ll try not to deserve it.”
He imagined she was yielding, but she roused herself with an effort.
“No,” she said. “Love on one side may go a long way, if it is strong enough—but it must be strong to overcome the many clashes of thought and will. Yours”—she looked at him steadily—“would not stand the strain.”
Vane started. “You are the only woman I ever wished to marry.” He paused with a forcible gesture. “What can I say to convince you?”
She smiled softly. “I’m afraid it’s impossible. If you had wanted me greatly, you would have pressed the claim you had in saving Mopsy, and I would have forgiven you that; you would have urged any and every claim. As it is, I suppose I am pretty”—her lips curled scornfully—“and you find some of your ideas and mine agree. It isn’t half enough. Shall I tell you that you are scarcely moved as yet?”
It flashed upon Vane that he was confronted with the reality. Her beauty had appealed to him, but without rousing passion, for there was little of the sensual in this man. Her other qualities, her reserved graciousness, which had a tinge of dignity in it; her insight and comprehension, had also had their effect; but they had only awakened admiration and respect. He desired her as one desires an object for its rarity and preciousness; but this, as she had told him, was not enough. Behind her physical and mental attributes, and half revealed by them, there was something deeper: the real personality of the girl. It was elusive, mystic, with a spark of immaterial radiance which might brighten human love with its transcendent glow; but, as he dimly realised, if he won her by force, it might recede and vanish altogether. He could not, with strong ardour, compel its clearer manifestation.
“I think I am as moved as it is possible for me to be,” he said.
Evelyn shook her head. “No; you will discover the difference some day, and then you will thank me for leaving you your liberty. Now I beg you to leave me mine and let me go.”
Vane stood silent a minute or two, for the last appeal had stirred him to chivalrous pity. He was shrewd enough to realise that if he persisted he could force her to come to him. Her father and mother were with him; she had nothing—no common-place usefulness or trained abilities—to fall back upon if she defied them. But it was unthinkable that he should brutally compel her.
“Well,” he said at length, “I must try to face the situation; I want to assure you that it is not a pleasant one to me. But there’s another point. I’m afraid I’ve made things worse for you. Your people will probably blame you for sending me away.”
Evelyn did not answer this, and he broke into a little grim smile. “Now,” he added, “I think I can save you any trouble on that score—though the course I’m going to take isn’t flattering, if you look at it in one way. I want you to leave me to deal with your father.”
He took her consent for granted, and leaning down laid a hand lightly on her shoulder. “You will try to forgive me for the anxiety I have caused you. The time I’ve spent here has been very pleasant, but I’m going back to Canada in a few days. Perhaps you’ll think of me without bitterness now and then.”
He turned away, and Evelyn sat still, glad that the strain was over, and thinking earnestly. The man was gentle and considerate as well as forceful, and she liked him. Indeed, she admitted that she had not met any man she liked as much, but that was not going very far. Then she began to wonder at her candour, and to consider if it had been necessary. It was curious that this was the only man she had ever taken into her confidence; and her next suitor would probably be a much less promising specimen. On the other hand, it was consoling to remember that eligible suitors for the daughter of an impoverished gentleman were likely to be scarce.
It had grown dark when she rose and, entering the house, went up to Mabel’s room. The girl looked at her sharply as she came in.
“So you have got rid of him,” she said. “I think you’re very silly.”
“How did you know?” Evelyn asked with a start.
“I heard him walking up and down the terrace, and I heard you go out. You can’t walk over raked gravel without making a noise. He went along to join you, and it was a good while before you came back at different times. I’ve been waiting for this the last day or two.”
Evelyn sat down with a strained smile. “Well,” she said, “I have sent him away.”
Mabel regarded her indignantly. “Then you’ll never get another chance like this one. If you had only taken him I could have worn decent frocks. Nobody could call the last one that.”
This was a favourite grievance and Evelyn ignored it; but Mabel had more to say. “I suppose,” she went on, “you don’t know that Wallace has been getting Gerald out of trouble?”
“Are you sure of that?” Evelyn asked sharply.
“Yes,” said Mabel; “I’ll tell you what I know. Wallace saw Gerald in London—he told us that—and we all know that Gerald couldn’t pay his debts a little while since. You remember he came down to Kendal and went on and stayed the next night with the Claytons. It isn’t astonishing that he didn’t come here after the row there was on the last occasion.”
“Go on,” said Evelyn. “What has his visit to the Claytons to do with it?”
“Well,” said Mabel, “you don’t know that I saw Gerald in the afternoon. After all, he’s the only brother I’ve got; and as Jim was going to the station with the trap I made him take me. The Claytons were in the garden; we were scattered about, and I heard Frank and Gerald, who had strolled off from the others, talking. Gerald was telling him about some things he’d bought; they must have been expensive, because Frank asked him where he got the money. Gerald laughed, and said he’d had an unexpected stroke of luck that had set him straight again. Now, of course, Gerald got no money from home, and if he’d won it he would have told Frank how he did so. Gerald always would tell a thing like that.”
Evelyn was filled with confusion and hot indignation. She had little doubt that Mabel’s surmise was correct.
“I wonder if he has told anybody, though it’s scarcely likely,” she said.
“Of course he hasn’t. We all know what Gerald is. Wallace ought to get his money back, now you have sent him away,” Mabel, who had waited a moment or two, went on. “But, of course, that’s most unlikely. It wouldn’t take Gerald long to waste it.”
Evelyn rose, and, making some excuse, left the room. A suspicion which had troubled her more than Gerald’s conduct had lately crept into her mind, and it now thrust itself upon her attention—several things pointed to the fact that her father had taken a similar course to that which her brother had taken. She felt that had she heard Mabel’s information before the interview with Vane, she might have yielded to him in an agony of humiliation. Mabel had summed up the situation with stinging candour and crudity—Vane, who had been defrauded, was entitled to recover the money he had parted with. For a few moments Evelyn was furiously angry with him, and then, growing calmer, she recognised that this was unreasonable. She could not imagine any idea of a compact originating with the man, and he had quietly acquiesced in her decision.
Soon after she left her sister, Vane walked into the room which Chisholm reserved for his own use. Chisholm was sitting at the table with some papers in front of him and a cigar in his hand, and Vane drew out a chair and lighted his pipe before he addressed him.
“I’ve made up my mind to sail on Saturday, instead of next week,” he said.
“You have decided rather suddenly, haven’t you?”
Vane knew that what his host wished to inquire about was the cause of his decision, and he meant to come to the point. He was troubled by no consideration for the man.
“The last news I had indicated that I was wanted,” he replied. “After all, there was only one reason why I have abused Mrs. Chisholm’s hospitality so long.”
“Well?” said Chisholm, with an abruptness which hinted at anxiety.
“You will remember what I asked you some time ago. I had better say that I abandon the idea.”
Chisholm started, and his florid face grew redder while Vane, in place of embarrassment, was conscious of a somewhat grim amusement. It seemed strange that a man of Chisholm’s stamp should have any pride, but he evidently possessed it.
“What am I to understand by that?” he asked with some asperity.
“I think what I said explained it. Bearing in mind your and Mrs. Chisholm’s influence, I’ve an idea that Evelyn might have yielded, if I’d strongly urged my suit; but that was not by any means what I wanted. I’d naturally prefer a wife who married me because she wished to do so. That’s why, after thinking the thing over, I’ve decided to—withdraw.”
Chisholm straightened himself in his chair, in fiery indignation, which he made no attempt to conceal.
“You mean that after asking my consent and seeing more of Evelyn, you have changed your mind. Can’t you understand that it’s an unpardonable confession; one which I never fancied a man born and brought up in your station could have brought himself to make.”
Vane looked at him with an impassive face. “It strikes me as largely a question of terms—I mayn’t have used the right one. Now you know how the matter stands, you can describe it in any way that sounds nicest. In regard to your other remark, I’ve been in a good many stations, and I must admit that until lately none of them were likely to promote much delicacy of sentiment.”
“So it seems,” Chisholm was almost too hot to sneer. “But can’t you realise how your action reflects upon my daughter?”
Vane held himself in hand. He had only one object: to divert Chisholm’s wrath from Evelyn to himself and he thought he was succeeding in this. For the rest, he cherished a strong resentment against the man.
“It can’t reflect upon her, unless you talk about it, and both you and Mrs. Chisholm have sense enough to refrain from doing so,” he answered dryly. “I can’t flatter myself that Evelyn will grieve over me.” Then his manner changed. “Now we’ll get down to business. I don’t purpose to call that loan in, which will, no doubt, be a relief to you.”
He rose leisurely and, strolling out of the room, met Carroll shortly afterwards in the hall. The latter glanced at him sharply.
“What have you been doing?” he inquired. “There’s a look I seem to remember in your eye.”
“I suppose I’ve been outraging the rules of decency, but I don’t feel ashamed. I’ve been acting the uncivilised Westerner, though it’s possible that I rather strained the part. To come to the point, however, we pull out for the Dominion first thing to-morrow.”
Carroll asked no further questions. He did not think it would serve any purpose, and he contented himself with making arrangements for their departure, which they took early on the morrow. Vane had a brief interview with Mabel, who shed some tears over him, and then by her contrivance secured a word or two with Evelyn alone.
“Now,” he said, “it’s possible that you may hear some hard things of me, and I count upon your not contradicting them. After all, I think you owe me that favour. There’s just another matter—as I won’t be here to trouble you, try to think of me leniently.”
He held her hand for a moment and then turned away, and a few minutes later he and Carroll left the Dene.