"You will have to go," said Henry Leslie, glancing sharply at his wife across the breakfast-table as he returned her an open letter which had lately arrived by the English mail. "I hardly know where to find the money for your passage out and home just now, and you will want new dresses—women always seem to. Still, we can't afford to miss an opportunity, and it may prove a good investment," he added, reflectively.
Millicent sighed as she took the letter, and, ignoring her husband's words, read it through again. It had been written by a relative, a member of the legal profession, and requested her to return at once to England. The stern old man, who had reared her, was slowly dying, and had expressed an urgent wish to see her.
"Isn't that the man who wanted you to marry Thurston, and when you disappointed him washed his hands of both of you?" Leslie inquired. "There were reasons why I hadn't the pleasure of duly making the acquaintance of your relatives, but I think you said he was tolerably wealthy, and, as he evidently desires a reconciliation, you must do your best to please him. Let me see. You might catch the next New York Cunarder or the Allan boat from Quebec."
Millicent looked up at him angrily. She was not wholly heartless, and her kinsman had not only provided for her after her parents died in financial difficulties, but in his own austere fashion he had been kind to her. Accordingly, her husband's comments jarred upon her.
"I should certainly go, even if I had to travel by Colonist car and steerage," she declared. "I should do so if there were no hope of financial benefit, which is, after all, very uncertain, for Anthony Thurston is not the man to change his mind when he has once come to a determination. The fact that he is dying and asks for me is sufficient—though it is perhaps useless to expect you to believe it."
"We must all die some day," was the abstracted answer. "Hardly an original observation, is it? But it would be folly to let such a chance pass, and I must try to spare you. If you really feel it, I sympathize with you, and had no intention of wounding your sensibilities, but as, unfortunately, circumstances force us to consider these questions practically, you will—well, you will do your best with the old man, Millicent. To put it so, you owe a duty to me."
Leslie and his wife had by this time learned to see each other's real self, naked and stripped of all disguise, and the sight was not calculated to inspire either with superfluous delicacy. The man, however, overlooked the fact that his partner in life still clung to a last grace of sentiment, and could, on occasion, deceive herself.
"I owe you a duty! How have you discharged yours to me?" she said, reproachfully. "Do not force me to oppose you, Harry, but if you are wise, go around to the depot and find out when the steamers sail."
"Yes, my dear," Leslie acquiesced with a smile, which he did not mean to be wholly ironical. "Would it be any use for me to say that I shall miss you?"
"No," answered Millicent, though she returned his smile. "You really would not expect me to believe you. Still, if only because of the rareness of such civility, I rather like to hear you say so."
Mrs. Leslie sailed in the first Cunarder, and duly arrived at a little station in the North of England where a dogcart was waiting to drive her to Crosbie Ghyll. She had known the man, who drove it long before, and he told her, with full details, how Anthony Thurston, having come down from an iron-working town to visit the owner of the dilapidated mansion had been wounded by a gun accident while shooting. The wound was not of itself serious, but the old man's health was failing, and he had not vitality enough to recover from the shock.
Meantime, while Millicent Leslie was driven across the bleak brown moorlands, Anthony Thurston lay in the great bare guest-chamber at Crosbie Ghyll. He had been a hard, determined man, a younger son who had made money in business, while his brothers died poor, clinging to the land, and it was with characteristic grimness that he was quietly awaiting his end. The narrow, deep-sunk window in front of him was open wide, though the evening breeze blew chilly from the fells, which rose blackly against an orange glow. Though he manifested no impatience, the sunset light beating in showed an expectant look in his eyes. A much younger man sat at a table close by and laid down the pen he held, when the other said:
"That will do, Halliday. Is there any sign of the dog-cart yet? You are sure she will come to-night?"
"There is a vehicle of some kind behind the larches, but I cannot see it clearly," was the answer. "You can rest satisfied, sir, for if Mrs. Leslie has missed the train, she will arrive early to-morrow."
"To-morrow may be too late," said the old man. "I do not feel well to-night. Yes, she will come. Millicent is like her father, and, though he ruined himself, it was not because he hadn't a keen eye for the main chance. Because I was a lonely man and because, in my struggling days her mother was kind to me, I was fond of her. You needn't be jealous, Halliday. You will have the winding up of my estate, and it won't affect your share."
There was a vein of misanthropic irony in most of what Anthony Thurston said, but the other man had the same blood in him, and answered quickly:
"My own business is flourishing, and I have tried to serve you hitherto because of the relationship. I have no other reason, sir."
"No," assented Thurston, with something approaching a laugh. "There is no doubt you are genuine. Millicent took after her father and, in spite of it, I was fond of her. Tell me again. Did you consider her happy when you saw her in Canada?"
"As I said before, it is a delicate question, but I did not think so. Her husband struck me as a particularly poor sample, sir."
"Ah! She married the rascal suddenly out of pique, perhaps, when Geoffrey left her. I could never quite get at the truth of that story, which, of course, was framed in the conventional way, but even now, though he's nearer of kin than Millicent, I can't quite forgive Geoffrey. You saw him, you said, on your last visit to those mines."
The speaker's tone was indifferent, but his eyes shoved keen interest, and Halliday answered:
"If ever the whole truth came out I don't think you would blame Geoffrey, sir. Individually, I would take his word against—well, against any woman's solemn declaration. Yes, I saw him. He was making a pretty fight single-handed against almost overwhelming natural difficulties."
"Why?" asked Anthony Thurston. "A woman out there, eh? Are you pleading his cause, Halliday? Remember, if you convince me, he may be another participant in the property."
"He did not explain all his motives to me, and nobody ever gained much by attempting to force a Thurston's confidence. If you were not my kinsman and were in better health I should feel tempted to recommend you to place your affairs in other hands. Confound the property!"
There was a curious cackle in the sick man's throat, and the flicker of a smile in his sunken eyes.
"I can believe it. You are tarred with the same brush as Geoffrey. The obstinate fool must go out there with a couple of hundred pounds or so, when he knew he had only to humor me by marrying Millicent and wait for prosperity. And yet, in one way, I'm glad he did. He never wrote me to apologize or explain—still, that's hardly surprising either. I don't know that any of us ever troubled much about other folks' opinions or listened to advice. Here am I, who might have lived another ten years, dying, because, when an officious keeper warned me, I went the opposite way. I hear wheels, Halliday."
"It is the dogcart," Halliday announced. "Yes—I see Mrs. Leslie."
"Thank God!" said the sick man. "Bring her here as soon as she's ready. Meantime, send in the doctor. I feel worse to-night."
The light was dying fast when Millicent Leslie came softly into the great bare room, and, for Anthony Thurston had paid for overtaxing his waning strength, her heart smote her as she looked upon him. She could recognize the stamp of fast approaching death. There was an unusual gentleness in his eyes, which brightened at her approach, and with the exception of Geoffrey, whose sympathy filled her with shame, it was long since anyone had looked upon her with genuine kindliness. So it was with real sorrow she knelt beside the bed and kissed him.
"I was shocked to hear of your accident, but it was some time ago, and you are recovering," she remarked, trying to speak hopefully, but with a catch in her breath.
"I am dying," was the answer, and Millicent sobbed when the withered fingers rested on her hair.
"I wanted to see you before I went. I was fond of you, Milly, and you—you and Geoffrey angered me. It was not your fault," the somewhat strained voice added wistfully. "He—I don't wish to hurt you, or hear the stereotyped version he of course endorsed. He left you?"
Millicent Leslie was not wholly evil. She had a softer side, and, in the moment of reconciliation, dreaded to inflict further pain upon one to whom she owed much. If the truth was not in her, there was one thing in her favor, so at least the afterwards tried to convince herself. Prompted by a desire to soothe a dying man's last hours, she voluntarily accepted a very unpleasant part. She was thankful her head was bent as she said: "It was perhaps my fault. I would not—I could not consent to humor him in what appeared a senseless project—and so Geoffrey went to Canada."
She felt the old man's hand move caressingly across her hair. "Poor Millicent," he sympathized. "And you chose another husband. Are you happy with him out there? But stay, it is twilight and the old place is gloomy. If you would like them, ask for candles. Geoffrey—Geoffrey left you!"
Millicent did not desire candles, but gently drew herself away. Anthony Thurston's tenderness had touched her, and, with sudden compunction, she remembered that she had deceived a dying man. He believed her, but she did not wish him to see her face. She drew a chair towards the bed, and for a moment looked about her, striving to collect her scattered thoughts. Framed by the stone-ribbed window, the afterglow still shimmered, a pale luminous green, and one star twinkled over the black shoulder of Crosbie Fell. Curlews called mournfully down in the misty mosses, and when she turned her head the sick man's face showed faintly livid against the darker coverings of the bed. For a moment she felt tempted to make full confession, or at least excuses for Geoffrey, but Anthony Thurston spoke again just then and the moment was lost.
"I asked are you happy in Canada, Millicent," he repeated, and there was command as well as kindness in his tone. Anthony Thurston, mine owner and iron works director, was dying, but he had long been a ruler of stiff-necked men, and the habit of authority still remained with him. It struck Millicent that he was in many ways very like Geoffrey.
"I am not," she admitted. "I would not have told you if you had not insisted. It is the result of my own folly, and there is no use complaining."
Anthony Thurston stretched out a thin, claw-like hand and laid it on one of her own. "Tell me," he said.
"We are poor. That is, my husband's position is precarious, and it is a constant struggle to live up to it."
"Then why do you try?"
Millicent sighed as she answered:
"It is, I believe, necessary or he would lose it, while he aims at obtaining sufficient influence to win him a connection, if he resumed his former land business."
"From what I know it is a rascally business; but there is more than this. My time is very short, Millicent, but it seems such a very little while since a bright-haired girl who atoned for another's injury sat upon my knee, and for the sake of those days I can still protect you. Your husband treats you ill?"
There was a vibration in the strained voice which more strongly reminded the listener of Geoffrey's, and awoke her bitterness against the man she had married. It was so long since she had taken a living soul into her confidence, that she answered impulsively: "There is no use hiding the truth from you. He does not treat me well."
Then she related the story of her married life, and Anthony Thurston listened gravely, comprehending more than she meant to tell him, for when she had finished he commented: "You have neither been over loyal nor over wise—too quick to see the present gain, blind to the greater one behind—but it is my part to help, not blame you, and I will try to do so. It is dark now. Please ask for my draught and the candles. Then I want you to tell me about Geoffrey. You have met him in Canada."
Millicent, retiring, stood for a few minutes looking down from a narrow window in the bare stone corridor on to the moor. There was no moon, but the night was luminous, for the stars twinkled with a windy glitter that was flung back by a neighboring tarn. The call of the curlew seemed more mournful, the crying of lapwing rose from the meadow land, and she started at a hollow hoot as an owl swept by on muffled wing. The night voices filled her with an eerie sensation—there was, she recollected, always something creepy about Crosbie Ghyll, and, for Millicent was superstitious, she shivered again at the reflection that she had cheated a dying man. But she could make partial reparation to the living at least, and when she came back with the candles there was resolve in her face.
"You asked me about Geoffrey. He has no reason to be ashamed of his record in Canada," she said. "I will tell you what I know from the beginning—and I hope I shall tell it well."
It was a relief to do so, and the story of Geoffrey's struggle and prospective triumph was a stirring one as it fell from the lips of the woman who had thrice wronged him. She guessed how her husband's employers had plotted, having gathered much from the talk of his guests, and the old man listened eagerly, until he struck the coverlet when she concluded. Grim satisfaction was stamped upon his twitching face.
"It is a brave story. I thank you, Millicent; you told it very well. Ay, the old blood tells—and I was proud of the lad. Went his own way in spite of me—he is my kinsman, what should I expect of him? Standing alone for a broken master, with cunning and wealth against him and his last dollar in the scheme! Quite in keeping with traditions, and there'll be broken crowns before they beat him down."
The dying man, who had fought perhaps as stubbornly all his life long, gasped once or twice before he added, "You must go now, Millicent. Send Halliday to me."
Millicent went out with a throbbing pulse and downcast eyes, and when the lawyer came in Thurston said: "Read over that partly completed will."
"Had you not better rest until to-morrow, sir?" was the answer. "Dr. Maltby warned you——"
"You ought to know by this time that I seldom take a warning, and to-morrow may be too late. Write, and write quickly. After payment of all bequests above, balance of real estate to yourself and Forsyth as trustees, to apply and use for the individual benefit of Millicent Leslie. If her husband lays hands upon it, I'll haunt you. You have power to nominate Geoffrey Thurston as your co-trustee. God knows what may happen, and her rascally husband may get himself shot by somebody he has swindled some day. What I wished for mightn't follow then? I'm paying you to make my will and not dictate to me. Repeat it as many times as may appear necessary to let my meaning show clearly through your legal phraseology."
"I have got it down, sir," the writer told him presently.
"Now, after deductions enumerated, all my floating investments in mines, stocks and shares to Geoffrey Thurston, to hold or sell as pleases him, unconditionally. Bequeathed in the hope that this will help him to confound his enemies."
It was written, signed and witnessed by Musker and the surgeon, then Anthony Thurston asked once more and very faintly for Millicent. He drew her down beside him and took her hand in his thin, gnarled one before he said:
"I have done my best for you, Milly—and again thank you for the story. After what Halliday said, it has helped to conquer an old bitterness, and—for my work is finished—I can die contented. I may be gone to-morrow, and my strength is spent. Good-by, Milly. God bless you!"
Millicent stooped and kissed him with a sense of shame. Before morning all power of speech or volition left Anthony Thurston, and twelve hours later he was dead.
It was with a heavy heart that Geoffrey Thurston turned over the papers Thomas Savine spread out before him in the Vancouver offices.
"I'm almost scared to do any more figuring," said Savine. "Money is going to be uncommonly tight with us, and, to make things worse, I can neither realize nor borrow. My brother's investments are way below par now, and the first sign of any weakness would raise up an opposition that would finish us. I can't stay here forever, and poor Julius is steadily getting worse instead of better. Are you still certain you can get the work done before the winter's through?"
"Yes," asserted Geoffrey. "If I can get the machinery and sufficient men—which means money. There's a moderate fortune waiting us once we can run the water out of the valley, and it's worth a desperate effort to secure it."
"We have made a good many daring moves since my brother gave me his power of attorney, and I have sunk more of my own money than my partners, who have backed me pluckily, care about. Still, I can't see how I'm going to meet your estimate, nohow."
"You have just got to do it," Geoffrey insisted. "It is the part you chose. At my end, I'll stop for nothing short of manslaughter. We simply can't afford to be beaten, and we're not going to be."
"I hope not," and Thomas Savine sighed dubiously. "Your assurance is refreshing, Geoffrey, but I own up I can't see—well, we've done enough for one day. Come round and spend the evening with me. Mrs. Savine is anxious to see you."
Geoffrey hesitated for a few seconds, and Thomas Savine smiled at something which faintly amused him. Remembering Helen's freezing look and his occupation when she last saw him, Geoffrey felt that it might not be pleasant to meet her so soon. Then, because he was a proud man, he endeavored to accept the invitation with cordiality.
"I am glad you will come," said Thomas Savine, with a trace of the dry humor which occasionally characterized him.
Geoffrey, who felt that in this instance the pleasure was hardly mutual, and that Helen might not share it with her uncle, said nothing further on that subject, until Mrs. Savine met him in the hotel corridor. A friendship had grown up between them since the day Geoffrey endured the elixir, after mending the bicycle, and there was a mischievous amusement in the lady's eyes as she said; "My compliments, Geoffrey. You are a brave man."
"I don't deserve them, madam. Wherein lies the bravery? Being at present in perfect health, I have no cause to fear you."
Mrs. Savine laughed good-naturedly, then laid her hand upon his arm with a friendly gesture. "Sober earnest, I am glad you came. I believe in you, Geoffrey, and like to see a man show the grit that's in him."
"I am honored," returned Geoffrey, with a little bow. There was a grateful look in his brown eyes, which did not quail in the slightest under the lady's scrutiny.
In spite of her good-will, he, however, derived little pleasure from that evening of relaxation. Helen showed no open displeasure, but he was painfully conscious that what she had seen had been a shock to her. It was impossible for him to volunteer an explanation. He was glad to retire with Savine and a cigar-box to the veranda, and trying to console himself with the reflection that he had at least shown no weakness—he took his leave early. Helen was not present when he bade Mrs. Savine farewell, but she saw him stride away over the gravel. Though she would not ask herself why, she felt gratified that he had not stayed away.
It was some time later when, one day of early winter, he sat in his wooden shanty, which at that season replaced the tent above the cañon. Close by English Jim was busy writing, and Geoffrey, gnawing an unlighted pipe, glanced alternately through the open door at his hurrying workmen and at the letter from Thomas Savine which he held in his hand.
The letter expressed a fear that a financial crisis was imminent. "Tell him he must settle all local bills up to the minute," said Thurston, throwing it across to his amanuensis. "I daresay the English makers will wait a little for payment due on machinery. Did you find that the amount I mentioned would cover the wages through the winter?"
"Only just," was the answer. "That is, unless you could cut some of them a little."
"Not a cent," Geoffrey replied. "The poor devils who risk their lives daily fully earn their money."
"Do you know their wages equal the figure the strikers demanded and you refused to pay? Summers told me about that dispute, sir," ventured English Jim.
"The strikers were not prepared to earn higher pay—and that one word, 'demanded,' makes a big difference. Hello! who is the stranger?"
Mattawa Tom was directing a horseman towards the shanty, and Geoffrey, who watched the newcomer with growing interest, found something familiar in his face and figure, until he rose up in astonishment when the man rode nearer.
"Halliday, by all that's wonderful!" he cried. "Uncommonly glad to see you; but whatever brought you back to this far-off land again?"
"Several things," was the answer, as Halliday, shaking the snow from his furs, dismounted stiffly. "Strain of overwork necessitated a change, my doctor told me. Trust estate I'm winding up comprised doubtful British Columbian mining interests, and last, but not least, to see you, Geoffrey."
The man's fur coat was open now, and Geoffrey, who glanced at the black coat beneath it, said:
"I'm glad you wanted to see me, anyway, but come in. Here, Jake, take the horse to the stable. Are my sympathies needed, Halliday—any of my new friends over yonder dead?"
Halliday stared at him blankly. "Haven't you read the letter I sent you? Do you get no English papers?" he questioned.
"No, to both. I fancy very few people over yonder trouble themselves as to whether I'm living. How did you address your letter?"
"Orchard City, or was it Orchardville? Mrs. Leslie told me the name of the postoffice, and I looked it up on a map."
Geoffrey thrust his guest into a chair.
"That explains it. This is Orchard Valley; the other place is away across the province, a forlorn hamlet, and some ox-driving postmaster has no doubt returned your letter. Do you bring bad news? Don't keep me in suspense."
"Anthony Thurston's dead. Died in your old place, partly the result of a gun accident," answered Halliday, and Geoffrey sat silent for a moment.
"I'm sorry—yes, sincerely," he said at last. "I can say it freely, because, as I daresay you know, I disappointed him, and can in no way benefit by his death. In fact, he had the power to refuse me what was morally my right, and no doubt he exercised it. Still, now it's too late, I feel ashamed that I never tried to patch up the quarrel. Poor old Anthony!"
Halliday smiled. "You are a better fellow than you often lead folks to suppose, Geoffrey—and I quite believe you. Such regrets are, however, generally useless, are they not? In this case especially so, for Anthony Thurston forgot the quarrel before he died, and sent you his very good wishes. I see I have a surprise in store. You are a beneficiary. He has bequeathed you considerably more than your moral share in the property."
Thurston strode up and down the shanty before he halted.
"I'm glad that, though perhaps I deserved it, he didn't carry the bitterness into the grave with him," he declared with earnestness. "We were too much like each other to get on well, but there was a time when he was a good friend to me. It's no use pretending I'm not pleased at what you tell me—it means a great deal to me. But you must be tired and hungry, and I want to talk by the hour to you."
Halliday did full justice to the meal which the camp cook produced, and afterwards the two men sat talking until the short winter afternoon had drawn to a close and the first stars were blinking down on untrodden snows. Answering a question Halliday said:
"Your share—I'll show you a complete list when I unpack my things—will, if left invested, provide you with a moderate income for a single man. Indeed, with your Spartan tastes, you might live in what you would consider luxury. As usual, however, in such cases, the securities are not readily marketable, and your interest in some ventures could hardly be summarily realized at any sacrifice. The whole is left to you unconditionally, but my advice is decidedly that you hold on."
"I am sorry," Geoffrey replied, "because even at a sacrifice I intend to sell. If you're not too tired to listen a little longer, I'll try to explain why."
Halliday listened gravely. Then he commented:
"As Anthony Thurston said, it is characteristic of you, and it's possible that he would have approved of what on the surface looks like folly. He stated that he hoped the bequest would help you to confound your enemies. But you must act as a business man. You say that, if you go deeper, your firm might still wind up just solvent; then why not abandon the apparently hopeless project, and withdraw? Follow your profession if you must work, or live upon your income. This drainage scheme looks tolerably desperate on your own showing, and if, selling at a sacrifice you sink all your new possessions in it, you may be left utterly cleaned out, a beggar. You have no other relatives likely to leave you another competence, Geoffrey."
"It can't be helped—or rather I don't want to help it. I've pledged my word and honor to see this undertaking through, and I mean to redeem it if it ruins me. Now what were you telling me about Mrs. Leslie?"
Halliday explained for some minutes before he said:
"You are on the spot, and it's your duty to join us. Anthony Thurston was always eccentric, and has left us a very troublesome charge. Her husband is not to get at the money, and this discrimination between man and wife is going to be confoundedly awkward. However, as I'm going to stay some little time, and if possible shoot a mountain sheep, we can discuss it at leisure."
Thomas Savine, who came up in a day or two, speedily became good friends with Halliday. Geoffrey had his work to superintend, and was suspicious that Halliday seized the opportunity his absence afforded to explain what appeared to him a sacrifice of Anthony Thurston's legacy. One evening when Halliday was down in the cañon watching the workmen toiling in the river, under the lurid blaze of the lucigen, Thomas Savine said:
"I'm going to talk straight, Geoffrey. Your friend told me the whole thing, and I agree with his opinion. See here, you are safe for life if you hold fast to what you have got now—and the Lord knows whether we will ever be successful in the cañon. Of course the money would help us, but it isn't sufficient to make victory dead certain, and it would be a drop in the bucket if we came down with a bang, as we may very well do. Even considering what's at stake, I couldn't let you make the plunge without protesting."
"If I had ten times as much, or ten times as little, it would all go after the rest," replied Geoffrey. "I appreciate your good intentions, but you can't, and never will, convince me, so there's no use talking. You will, in the meantime, say not a word to Miss Savine on the subject."
Next morning Geoffrey said to his guest:
"I want you to write out a telegram to your partner in England. Yonder's a mounted messenger waiting for it. He's to sell everything bequeathed to me at the best price he can. You have done your best, Halliday, and I suppose I ought to be more grateful than I am, but you see I'm rather fond than otherwise of a big risk. We'll ride over with Mr. Savine and call upon my partner to-day."
It was late in the afternoon when the two arrived at the ranch which Savine had rented. It was the nearest dwelling to the camp that could be rendered comfortable, but lay some distance from it, over a very bad trail. Helen was not cordial towards Geoffrey, who left her to entertain Halliday, and slipped away to the room looking down the valley, where his partner sat with a fur robe wrapped about his bent shoulders. Savine's face had grown very hollow and his eyes were curiously dim.
"It was good of you to come, Geoffrey," he said; "How are you getting on in the cañon?"
"Famously, sir. We are certainly going to beat the river," was the prompt answer, and remembering the accession of capital, Geoffrey's cheerfulness was real. "I'm hoping to ask Miss Savine to fire the final shot some time before the snows melt."
Savine looked at him with a trace of his old keenness, and appeared satisfied that the speaker believed in his own prediction. Then he smiled as he answered:
"You do me good, Geoffrey. Good news is better than gallons of medicine, and when you make such a promise I feel I can trust you. I'm grateful, but it's mighty trying to lie here helpless while another man plays out my last and boldest game for me. Lord! what wouldn't I give for just three months of my old vigor! Still, I'll never be fit again, and as I must lean on somebody, I'm glad it should be you."
"Lean on me! You have given me the chance of my life, sir. You don't look quite comfortable there. Let me settle that rug for you," said Geoffrey, and as with clumsy gentleness he rearranged the sick man's wrappings, Helen came unobserved into the room. She read the pity beneath the smile on the younger man's bronze face and noticed how willingly his hard fingers did their unaccustomed work. Her heart grew soft towards Geoffrey as she heard her father's sigh of content. The sight touched, though, for a reason she was ashamed of, it also troubled her. Unwilling to disturb them, she merely smiled when Thurston saw her, and found herself a seat in a corner.
"My brain's not so clear as it used to be. No use hiding things. Why," began Savine, and Geoffrey, who surmised that he had not seen his daughter, knocked over a medicine bottle with his elbow and spent some time noisily groping under the table for it. The action might have deceived one of his own sex, but Helen, who wondered what his motive was, grew piqued as well as curious.
"I've been worrying over things lately," continued Savine. "There was one of the rancher's hired men in and he told our folks a mixed story about a sluice gate bursting. You never mentioned it to me. Now I have a hazy notion that I made a drawing for a gate one day, when I was—sick, we'll say. I looked for it afterwards and couldn't find it. I've been thinking over it considerable lately."
"Then you are very foolish, sir," declared Geoffrey. "Of course, we have had one or two minor breakages, but nothing we were unable to remedy. Just now everything is going ahead in the most satisfactory manner."
Helen, who watched the speaker, decided that he was concealing something, and also fancied her father did not seem quite satisfied.
"I've been wondering whether it was that gate which burst. See here, Geoffrey, I feel you have had bad trouble; isn't it a little mean not to tell me? You will remember I'm still Julius Savine—and only a little while ago there was no man in the province who dared to try to fool me."
A measure of the speaker's former spirit revealed itself in a clearer vibration of his voice, and, raising himself in his chair, Savine became for a moment almost the man he had been.
Thurston had determined to hold his fallen leader's credit safe, not only before the eyes of others but even in his own, and was doing it to the best of his ability.
"Of course, we have had trouble—lots of it, but nothing we could not overcome," he repeated. "If everything went smoothly it would grow monotonous. Still, you can rest perfectly contented, sir, and assist us with your judgment in the difficult cases. For instance, would you let me know what you think of these specifications?"
Savine, who seemed to find a childish pleasure in being consulted, forgot his former anxiety, and Geoffrey, leaving him contented, slipped out of the ranch, and, finding a sheltered path among the redwoods, paced to and fro. He was presently surprised to see Helen move out from among the trees. She had a fur about her shoulders which set off the finely-chiselled face above it. Nevertheless, for once at least, he was by no means pleased to see her.
"I wish to ask you a question," she said. "Of course, I have heard there was an inquiry into the breaking of the sluice, but neither you nor my uncle thought fit to give me any definite information on the subject. Unfortunately, my father heard distorted rumors of the accident, and has been fretting ever since. As you know, this is most detrimental to his failing health, and, so that I may be the better able to soothe him I want you to tell me all that happened."
"There is absolutely no cause for uneasiness. As I said, we had one or two difficulties which may have been vanquished. Your uncle will bear me out in this," answered Geoffrey, who would have spoken more freely had he not feared the girl's keenness. Helen's face, which was at first scornful, grew anxious as she responded:
"I have no doubt he would! In fact, when I asked him he explained with such readiness that I cannot help concluding you have both conspired to keep me in the dark. Can you not see that, situated as I am in caring for an invalid who will not let his mind rest, uncertainty is almost worse than the knowledge of disaster to me. Will you not tell me frankly what you fear?"
"I would do anything to drive your fears away." Geoffrey, who felt helpless beneath the listener's searching eyes, spoke with sympathy in his voice. "But I can only say again there is very slight cause for anxiety."
Helen turned half from him, angrily, then she faced round again. "You are not a good dissembler. If quick at making statements you are not prepared to substantiate them," she declared. "You would do anything to dispel my fears—but the one most necessary thing I ask. You have passed through, or are now facing, a crisis, and though some knowledge of it would be of great help to me you do not consider me worthy of your confidence."
"Heaven forbid that I should think so. There is no one more worthy—but——" Helen checked him with a gesture.
"I desire the simple truth and not indifferent compliments," she said. "You will not tell it to me, and I will plead with you no further, even for my father's sake. When will you men learn that a woman's discretion is at least equal to your own?" With a flash in her eyes, she added: "How dare you once offer what you did to a woman you had no trust in?"
"You are almost cruel," Geoffrey answered, clenching his hand as he mastered his own anger. "Some day, perhaps, you will yet believe I tried to do what was best. Meantime, since I dare not presume to resent it, I must try to bear your displeasure patiently."
He might have said more, but that Helen left him abruptly.
"It is confoundedly hard. Once strike a certain vein of bad luck and you can neither get around nor under it, but there's no use groaning—and what on earth could I have done?" he said to the whispering firs.
He went back presently to the ranch, and found Helen, who apparently did not notice his return, chatting with Halliday. When the two men bade their host farewell, Halliday, who lingered a few minutes, observed to Thomas Savine:
"I always knew my friend was reckless, but when I spoke as I did I failed to comprehend what was at once his incentive and justification. I must thank you for your attempt to aid me, but even against the dictates of my judgment I can't help sympathizing with him now. If you don't mind my saying so—because I see you know—I think what he hopes to win is very well worth the risk."
"I certainly know, and perhaps I am prejudiced in favor of my niece, but I feel tempted to agree with you," answered Savine. "There are few better women in the Dominion, but she is wayward, and whether Geoffrey will ever win her only Heaven knows. Meantime, though we depend so much upon him, I am often ashamed to let him take his chances with us. Believe me, I have endeavored to dissuade him."
Halliday smiled. "I am a kinsman of his and know him well," he said. "It is quite in keeping with traditions that he should be perfectly willing to ruin himself for a woman, and I am at least thankful that the woman proves worthy. In this case, however, I venture to hope the end may be the achievement of prosperity. I generally speak my mind and hope I have not offended you."
Winter creeping down from the high peaks held the whole valley fast in its icy grip when Mrs. Thomas Savine, who was seldom daunted by the elements, went up from Vancouver to persuade her niece to seek sheltered quarters on the sunny coast until spring. Her visit was, however, in this respect a failure, for Julius Savine insisted upon remaining within touch of the reclamation works. Though seldom able to reach them, he looked eagerly forward to Geoffrey's brief visits, which alone seemed to arouse him from his lethargy.
Mrs. Savine and Helen sat in the general living-room at the ranch one day when her brother-in-law came in leaning heavily upon his partner's arm. Geoffrey had set his carpenters to build a sleigh, and from one hill shoulder bare of timber it was possible, with good glasses, to see what went on in the cañon. Savine was listening with evident satisfaction to the tall, frost-bronzed man who led him towards the room that he delighted to call his office, and Mrs. Savine, noticing it, smiled gratefully upon Geoffrey. Worn by anxious watching, Helen was possibly a little out of humor that afternoon, and the sight awoke within her a certain jealousy. She had done her best, and had done it very patiently, but she had failed to arouse her father to the animation he showed in Geoffrey's presence.
"I haven't felt so well since I saw you last," observed Savine, oblivious for the moment of his daughter. "You won't fail to come back as soon as ever you can—say the day after to-morrow?"
Geoffrey glanced towards Helen, who made no sign, and Mrs. Savine noticed that for a moment his face clouded. Then, as he turned towards his partner, he seemed to make an effort, and his expression was confident again.
"I am afraid I cannot leave the works quite so often. Yes—we are progressing at least as well as anyone could expect," he said. "I will come and consult you whenever I can. In fact, there are several points I want your advice upon."
"Come soon," urged Savine, with a sigh. "It does me good to talk to you—after the life I've lived, this everlasting loafing comes mighty hard to me. I believe once I knew we were victorious I could let go everything and die happy."
Helen heard, and, overwrought as she was by nights of assiduous care, the speech both pained and angered her. Geoffrey's answer was not audible, as they passed on. He came back alone, off his guard for a moment, looking worn and weary, and Mrs. Savine said:
"You are tired, Geoffrey, and if you don't appear more lively next time I will attend to you. No—don't get scared. It is not physic I'm going to prescribe now. Take this lounge and just sit here where it's cosy. Talk to Helen and me until supper's ready."
Thurston had been crawling over ice-crusted rocks and wading knee-deep in water most of the preceding night. The chair stood temptingly between the two ladies and near the stove. He glanced towards it and Helen longingly. Some impulse tempted the girl to say:
"Mr. Thurston has usually so little time to spare that it would be almost too much to hope that he could devote an hour to us."
The tone was ironical, and Geoffrey, excusing himself, went out. He sighed as he floundered down the snow-cumbered trail. There was indignation in the elder lady's voice as she declared:
"I am ashamed of you, Helen. The poor man came in too late, for dinner, and he must be starving. If you had just seen how he looked at you! You'd feel mean and sorry if they found him to-morrow frozen hard in the snow."
Helen could not fancy Geoffrey overcome by such a journey because he had missed two meals, and she smiled at her aunt's dismal picture, answering her with a flippancy which increased the elder lady's indignation, "Mr. Thurston is not a cannibal, auntie."
"I can't figure why you are fooling with that man if you don't want him," said Mrs. Savine. "Oh, yes; you're going to sit here and listen to some straight talking. Isn't he good enough for you?"
Helen's face was flushed with angry color. "You speak with unpleasant frankness, but I will endeavor to answer you," she responded. "I have told Mr. Thurston—that is, I have tried to warn him that he was expecting the impossible, and what more could I do? He is my father's partner, and I cannot refuse to see him. I——"
Mrs. Savine, leaning forward, took her niece's hands in her own, saying gravely, "Are you certain it is quite impossible?"
For a moment Helen looked startled, and her eyes fell. Then, raising her head, she answered: "Have I not told you so? I have been anxious about my father lately and do not feel myself to-day. Surely you have no wish further to torment me."
"No, but I mean to finish what I have to say. Do you know all that man is doing for you? He has——" But Mrs. Savine ceased abruptly, remembering she had in return for her husband's confidence promised secrecy.
"Yes. I think I know everything," replied Helen, with something suspiciously like a sob, while her aunt broke her pledge to the extent of shaking her head with a gesture of negation. "It—it makes it worse for me. I dare not bid him go away, and I grow horribly ashamed because—because it hurts one to be conscious of so heavy a debt. Besides, he is consoling himself with Mrs. Leslie!"
"Geoffrey Thurston would be the last man to consider you owed him anything, and as to Mrs. Leslie—pshaw! It's as sure as death, Geoffrey doesn't care two bits for her. He would never let you feel that debt, my dear, but the debt is there. From what Tom has told me he has declined offer after offer, and you know that, if he carries this last scheme through, the credit and most of the money will fall to your father."
"I know." The moisture gathered in Helen's eyes. "I am grateful, very grateful—as I said, ashamed, too; but my father comes first. I tried to warn Geoffrey, but he would not take no. I feel almost frightened sometimes lest he will force me to yield against my will, but you know that would be a wrong to him—and what can I do?"
Helen, unclasping her hands from her aunt's, looked straight before her, and Mrs. Savine answered gently: "Not that. No—if you can't like him it would not be fair to him. Only try to be kind, and make quite sure it is impossible. It might have been better for poor Geoffrey if he had never mixed himself up with us. You, with all your good points, are mighty proud, my dear, but I have seen proud women find out their mistake when it was too late to set things straight. Wait, and without the help of a meddlesome old woman, it will perhaps all come right some day."
"Auntie," said Helen, looking down, some minutes later. "Though you meant it in kindness, I am almost vexed with you. I have never spoken of these things to anyone before, and though it has comforted me, you won't remind me—will you?"
"No." The older woman smiled upon the girl. "Of course not! But you are pale and worried, and I believe that there is nothing that would fix you better than a few drops of the elixir. I think I sent you a new bottle."
Then, though her eyes were misty, Helen laughed outright, as she replied:
"It was very kind of you, but I fear I lost the bottle, and have wasted too much time over my troubles. What can I tempt my father with for supper?"
When Geoffrey returned to camp, Halliday, who had arrived that day from Vancouver, had much to tell him.
"I've sold your English property, and the value lies to your credit in the B. O. M. agency. All you have to do is to draw upon your account," he said. "As you intend to sink the money in these works I can only wish you the best of good luck. Now, I'm starting for home to-morrow, and there's the other question—how to protect the interests of Mrs. Leslie. Anthony Thurston made a just will, and her share, while enough to maintain her, is not a large one, but I don't see yet just how it's to be handled. It was the testator's special wish that you should join the trustees, and that her husband should not lay his hands upon a dollar. From careful inquiries made in Vancouver, I judge he's a distinctly bad lot. Anyway, you'll have to help us in the meantime, Geoffrey, and in opening a small bank account I made your signature necessary on every check."
"It's a confoundedly unpleasant position under the circumstances. What on earth could my kinsman have been thinking of when he forced it upon me of all men?" Geoffrey responded with a rueful face. "Still, I owe him a good deal, and suppose that I must cheerfully acquiesce to his wishes."
"I cannot take upon myself to determine what the testator thought," was the dry answer. "He said the estimable Mr. Leslie might either shoot or drink himself to death some day. The late Anthony Thurston was a tenacious person, and you must draw your own conclusions."
"If there was one thing which more than another tempted me to refuse you every scrap of assistance it was the conclusion I arrived at," said Geoffrey. "However, I'll try to keep faith with the dead man, and Heaven send me sense sufficient to steer clear of difficulties."
"I can trust your honesty any way," remarked Halliday. "There's a heavy load off my mind at last. You are a good fellow, Geoffrey, and, excuse the frankness, even in questions beyond your usual scope not so simple as you sometimes look."
A day or two before this conversation took place, Henry Leslie, sitting at his writing-table in the villa above the inlet, laid down his pen and looked up gratefully at his wife, who placed a strip of stamped paper before him. Millicent both smiled and frowned as she noticed how greedily his fingers fastened upon it.
"It is really very good of you. You don't know how much this draft means to me," he said. "I wish I needn't take it, but I am forced to. It's practically the whole of the first dole your skinflint trustee made you, isn't it?"
"It is a large share," was the answer. "Almost a year's allowance, and I'm going to pay off our most pressing debts with the rest. But I am glad to give it to you, Harry, and we must try to be better friends, and keep on the safe side after this."
"I hope we shall," replied the man, who was touched for once. "It's tolerably hard for folks like us, who must go when the devil drives, to be virtuous, but I got hold of a few mining shares, which promise to pay well now, for almost nothing; and if they turn up trumps, I'd feel greatly tempted to throw over the Company and start afresh."
He hurriedly scribbled a little note, and Millicent turned away with a smile that was not far from a sigh. She had returned from England in a repentant mood, and her husband, whose affairs had gone smoothly, was almost considerate, so that, following a reconciliation, there were times when she cherished an uncertain hope that they might struggle back to their former level. It was on one of the occasions when their relations were not altogether inharmonious that she had promised to give him a draft to redeem the loan Director Shackleby held like a whip lash over him. Had Leslie been a bolder man, it is possible that his wife's aspirations might have been realized, for Millicent was not impervious to good influences.
Unfortunately for her, however, a free-spoken man called Shackleby, who said that he had been sent by his colleagues who managed the Industrial Enterprise Company, called upon Thurston and Savine together in their city offices. He came straight to the point after the fashion of Western business men.
"Julius Savine has rather too big a stake in the Orchard Valley for any one man," he said. "It's ancient history that if, as usual with such concerns as ours, we hadn't been a day or two too slow, we would have held the concessions instead of him. Neither need I tell you about the mineral indications in both the reefs and alluvial. Now we saw our way to rake a good many dollars out of that valley, but when Savine got in ahead we just sat tight and watched him, ready to act if he found the undertaking too big for him. It seems to me that has happened, which explains my visit to-day. We might be open to buy some of those conditional lands from you."
"They may never be ours to sell, though I hope for the contrary," Geoffrey replied.
"Exactly," said the other. "That is why we're only ready to offer you out-district virgin forest value for the portions colored blue in this plan. In other words, we speculate by advancing you money on very uncertain security."
Geoffrey laughed after a glance at the plan. "You have a pretty taste! After giving you all the best for a tithe of its future value, where do we come in?"
"On the rest," declared Shackleby, coolly. "We would pay down the money now, and advance you enough on interest to place you beyond all risks in completing operations. Though you might get more for the land, without this assistance, you might get nothing, and it will be a pretty heavy check. I suppose I needn't say it was not until lately that we decided to meet you this way."
"By your leave!" broke in Thomas Savine, who had been scribbling figures on a scrap of paper, which he passed to Geoffrey. It bore a few lines scrawled across the foot of it: "Value absurdly low, but it might be a good way to hedge against total loss, and we could level up the average on the rest. What do you think?"
Geoffrey grasped a pen, and the paper went back with the brief answer, "That it would be a willful sacrifice of Miss Savine's future."
"Suppose we refuse?" he asked, and Shackleby stroked his mustache meditatively before he made answer:
"Don't you think that would be foolish? You see, we were not unanimous by a long way on this policy, and several of our leaders agree with me that we had better stick to our former one. It's a big scheme, and accidents will happen, however careful one may be. Then there's the risk of new conditions being imposed upon you by the authorities. Besides, you have a time limit to finish in, and mightn't do it, especially without the assistance we could in several ways render you. You can't have a great many dollars left either—see?"
"I do," said Geoffrey, with an ominous glitter in his eyes. "You needn't speak more plainly. Accidents, no doubt of the kind you refer to, have happened already. They have not, however, stopped us yet, and are not going to. I, of course, appreciate your delicate reference to your former policy; I conclude it was your policy individually. I don't like threats, even veiled ones, and nobody ever succeeded in coercing me. Accordingly, when we have drained it, we'll sell you all the land you want at its market value. You can't have an acre at anything like the price you offer now."
"That's your ultimatum. Yes? Then I'm only wasting time, and hope you won't be sorry," returned Shackleby. When he went out Geoffrey turned to Thomas Savine.
"A declared enemy is preferable to a treacherous ally," he observed dryly. "That man would never have kept faith with us."
"I don't know," was the answer. "Of course, he's crooked, but he has his qualities. Anyway, I'd sooner trust him than the invertebrate crawler, Leslie."
A day or two later Shackleby called upon Leslie in his offices and with evident surprise received the check Millicent had given to her husband.
"I wasn't in any hurry. Have some of your titled relatives in the old country left you a fortune?" he inquired ironically.
"No," was the answer. "My folks are mostly distinctly poor commoners. I, well—I have been rather fortunate lately."
"Here's your receipt," said Shackleby, with an embarrassing stare, adding when Leslie, after examining it carefully, thrust the paper into the glowing stove, "Careful man! Nobody is going to get ahead of you, but can't you see that blame paper couldn't have made a cent's worth of difference between you and me. Well, if you still value your connection with the Company, I have something to tell you. That infernal idiot Thurston won't hear of making terms, and, as you know, there's a fortune waiting if we can corral the valley."
"I can see the desirability, but not the means of accomplishing it," replied Leslie.
"No!" and the speaker glanced at him scornfully. "Well, Thurston must finish by next summer, or his conditional grants are subject to revision, while it's quite plain he can only work in the cañon in winter. Something in the accident line has got to happen."
"It failed before." Shackleby laughed.
"What's the matter with trying again, and keeping on trying? I've got influence enough to double your salary if Thurston doesn't get through. It will be tolerably easy, for this time I don't count on trusting too much to you. I'll send you along a man and you'll just make a bet with him—we'll fix the odds presently and they'll be heavy against us—that Thurston successfully completes the job in the cañon. The other man bets he doesn't. When it appears judicious we'll contrive something to draw Thurston away for a night or two."
"But if you know the man, and it's so easy, why not make the bet yourself?" Shackleby smiled pleasantly.
"Because I'm not secretary hoping to get my salary doubled and a land bonus. There are other reasons, but I don't want to hurt your feelings any more than I wish to lacerate those of my worthy colleagues. They'll ask no questions and only pass a resolution thanking you for your zealous services. Nothing is going to slip up the wrong way, but if it did you could only lose your salary, and I'd see you safe on the way to Mexico with say enough to start a store, and you would be no worse off than before, because I figure you'd lose the berth unless you chip in with me."
Leslie realized that this might well be so, but he made a last attempt. "Suppose in desperation I turned round on you?"
"I'd strike you for defamation and conspiracy, publish certain facts in your previous record, and nobody would believe you, or dare to say so. Besides, you haven't got grit enough in you by a long way, and that's why I'm taking your consent for granted. By the way, I forgot to mention that confounded Britisher raked an extra hundred dollars out of me. Said I'd got to pay for his traveling and hotel expenses. I'm not charging you, Leslie, and you ought to feel grateful to me."