Hawtrey remembered that Agatha did not like tobacco smoke, and had always been inclined to exact a certain conventional deference which he had grown to regard as rather out of place upon the prairie.
"That's a very long way off," he objected.
Sally showed no sign of conceding the point as he had expected, and he took out his pipe. He wanted to think, for once more instincts deep down in him stirred in faint protest against what he almost meant to do. There were also several points that required practical consideration, and among them were his financial difficulties, though these did not trouble him so much as they had done a few months earlier. For a minute or two neither of them said anything, and then Sally spoke again.
"You're worrying about something, Gregory?" she said.
Hawtrey admitted it. "Yes," he said, "I am. My place is a poor one, and when Wyllard comes home I shall have to go back to it again. Things would be so much easier for me just now if I had the Range."
The girl looked at him steadily with reproach in her eyes.
"Oh," she said, "your place is quite big enough if you'd only take hold and run it as it ought to be run. You could surely do it, Gregory, if you tried."
The man's resistance grew feebler, as it usually did when his prudence was at variance with his desires. Sally's words were in this case wholly guileless, as he recognised, and they stirred him. He said nothing, however, and she spoke again.
"Isn't it worth while, though there are things you would have to give up?" she said. "You couldn't go away and waste your dollars in Winnipeg every now and then."
Hawtrey laughed. "No," he admitted; "I suppose if I meant to make anything of the place that couldn't be done. Still, you see, it's horribly lonely sitting by oneself beside the stove in the long winter nights. I wouldn't want to go to Winnipeg if I had only somebody to keep me company."
He turned towards her suddenly with decision in his face, and Sally lowered her eyes.
"Don't you think you could get anybody if you tried?" she asked.
"The trouble," said Hawtrey gravely, "is that I have so little to offer them. It's a poor place, and I'm almost afraid, Sally, that I'm rather a poor farmer. As you have once or twice pointed out, I don't stay with things. Still, it might be different if there was any particular reason why I should."
He rose, and crossing the room, stood close beside her chair. "Sally," he added, "would you be afraid to take hold and see what you could make of the place and me? Perhaps you could make something, though it would probably be very hard work, my dear."
The blood surged into the girl's face, and she looked up at him with open triumph in her eyes. It was her hour, and Sally, as it happened, was not afraid of anything.
"Oh!" she said; "you really want me?"
"Yes," said Hawtrey quietly; "I think I have wanted you for ever so long, though I did not know it until lately."
"Then," she said, "I'll do what I can, Gregory."
Hawtrey bent his head and kissed her with a deference he had not expected to feel, for there was something in the girl's simplicity and the completeness of her surrender which, though the thing seemed astonishing, laid a restraint on him. Then, as he sat down on the arm of her chair with a hand upon her shoulder, he was more astonished still, for she quietly made it clear that she expected a good deal from him. For one thing, he realised that she meant him to take and keep a foremost place among his neighbours, and, though Sally had not the gift of clear and imaginative expression, it became apparent that this was less for her own sake than his. She was, with somewhat crude forcefulness, trying to rouse a sense of responsibility in the man, to incite him to resolute action and wholesome restraint, and, as he remembered what he had hitherto thought of her, a salutary sense of confusion crept upon him.
She seemed to recognise it, for at length she glanced up at him sharply.
"What is it, Gregory? Why do you look at me like that?" she asked.
Hawtrey smiled in a rather curious fashion. Hitherto she had made her appeal through his senses to one side of his nature only. There was no doubt on that point, but now it seemed there were in her qualities he had never suspected. She had desired him as a husband, but it was becoming clear that she would not be content with the mere possession of him. Sally, it seemed, had wider ideas in her mind, and, though the thing seemed almost ludicrous, she wanted to be proud of him.
"My dear," he said, "I can't quite tell you – but you have made me rather badly ashamed. In some respects, I'm afraid it's a very rash thing you are going to do."
She looked at him with candid perplexity, and then appeared to dismiss the subject with a smile.
"There is so much I want to say, and it mayn't be so easy – afterwards," she said. "It's a pity the train starts so soon."
"We can get over that difficulty, anyway," said Hawtrey. "I'll come on as far as I can with you, and get back from one of the way stations by the Pacific express."
Sally made no objections, and drawing a little closer to him she talked on in a low voice earnestly.
CHAPTER XXII.
A PAINFUL REVELATION
A sprinkle of snow was driving down the unpaved street before the bitter wind, when Mrs. Hastings came out of a store in the settlement and handed Sproatly, who was waiting close by, several big packages.
"You can put them into the waggon, and tell Jake we'll want the team as soon as supper's over," she said. "We're going to stay with Mrs. Ormond to-night, and I don't want to get there too late."
Sproatly took the parcels, and Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha, who stood a pace or two behind her with Winifred.
"Now," she said, "if there's nothing else you want to buy we'll go across to the hotel."
They reached it a few minutes later, and were standing in a big and rather comfortless room when Sproatly rejoined them.
"This place is quite shivery," said Mrs. Hastings. "They generally have the stove lighted in the little room along the corridor. Go and see, Jim."
Sproatly went out, and, as it happened, he was wearing gum-boots, which make very little noise. He proceeded along a dark corridor, and then stopped abruptly when he had almost reached a partly-open door, for he could see into a lighted room. Hawtrey was sitting near the stove inside it on the arm of Sally's chair.
Then, though he was not greatly astonished, Sproatly drew back a pace or two into the shadow, for it became evident that there were only two courses open to him. He could judiciously announce his presence by making the door rattle, and then go in and mention as casually as possible that Mrs. Hastings and Agatha were in the hotel. He felt that he ought to do it, but there was the difficulty that he could not warn Hawtrey without embarrassing Sally. Sproatly pursed his face up in honest perplexity as it became evident that the situation was a delicate one, and then decided on the alternative. He would go back quietly, and keep Mrs. Hastings out of the room if it could be done.
"I think you would be just as comfortable where you are," he informed her when he joined the others.
"I'm rather doubtful," said Mrs. Hastings. "Wasn't the stove lighted?"
"Yes," said Sproatly, "I fancy it was."
"But I sent you to make sure."
"The fact is I didn't go in," said Sproatly, uneasily. "There's somebody in the room already."
"Any of the boys would go out if they knew we wanted it."
"Oh yes," said Sproatly. "Still, you see, it's only a small room, and one of them has been smoking."
Mrs. Hastings flashed a keen glance at him, and then smiled in a manner he did not like. It suggested that while she yielded to his objections in the meanwhile she had by no means abandoned the subject.
"Well," she said, "what shall we do until supper? This stove won't draw properly, and I don't feel inclined to sit shivering here."
Then Sproatly was seized by what proved to be a singularly unfortunate inspiration.
"It's really not snowing much, and we'll go down to the depôt and watch the Atlantic express come in," he suggested. "It's one of the things everybody does."
This was, as a matter of fact, correct. There are not many amusements open to the inhabitants of the smaller settlements along the railroad track, and the arrival of the infrequent trains is a source of unflagging interest to most of them. Mrs. Hastings fell in with the suggestion, and Sproatly was congratulating himself upon his diplomacy when Agatha stopped as they reached the door of the hotel.
"Oh," she said, "I've only brought one of my mittens."
"I'll go back for the other," said Sproatly promptly.
"You don't know where I left it."
"Then I'll lend you one of mine. It will certainly go on," the man persisted.
Agatha objected to this, and Sproatly, who fancied that Mrs. Hastings was watching him, let her go, after which he and the others moved out into the street. Agatha in the meanwhile ran back to the room they had left, and, finding the mitten, had reached the head of the stairway when she heard voices behind her in the corridor. She recognised them, and turned in sudden astonishment, standing, as it happened, in the shadow, though not far away a stream of light from the door of the room shone out into the corridor. Next moment Hawtrey and Sally approached the door, and as the light fell upon them the blood surged into Agatha's face, for she remembered the embarrassment in Sproatly's manner, and that he had done all he could to prevent her going back for the mitten. Then Hawtrey spoke to Sally, and there was no doubt whatever that he called her "My dear."
Agatha stood still a moment filled with burning indignation, and they were almost upon her before she turned and fled precipitately down the stairway. She felt that this was horribly undignified, but she could not stay and face them. When she overtook the others she had, however, at least recovered her outward composure, and they went on together towards the track. As yet she was only sensible of anger at the man's treachery. It possessed her too completely for her to be conscious of anything else.
Cold as it was, there were a good many loungers in the station, and Sproatly, who spoke to one or two of them, led his party away from the little shed they hung about, and walked briskly up and down beside the track until a speck of blinking light rose out of the white wilderness. It grew rapidly larger, until they could make out a trail of smoke behind it, and the roar of wheels rose in a long crescendo. Then a bell commenced to toll, and the blaze of a big lamp beat into their faces as the great locomotive came clanking into the station.
It stopped, and the light from the long car windows fell upon the groups of watching fur-clad men, while here and there a shadowy object that showed black against it leaned out from a platform. There was, however, no sign of any passengers for the train until at the last moment two figures appeared hurrying along beneath the cars. They drew nearer, and Agatha set her lips tight as she recognised them, for the light from a vestibule shone into Hawtrey's face as he half lifted Sally on to one of the platforms and sprang up after her. Then the bell tolled again, and the train slid slowly out of the station with its lights flashing upon the snow.
Agatha turned away abruptly and walked a little apart from the rest. The thing, she felt, only admitted of one explanation, and she did not wish her companions to see her face for the next minute or two. Sproatly's diplomacy had had a most unfortunate result, and she was sensible of an almost intolerable disgust. She had kept faith with Gregory, at least, as far as it was possible to her, and he had utterly humiliated her. The affront he had put upon her was almost unbearable.
In the meanwhile, Mrs. Hastings walked up to Sproatly, who, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, had drawn back judiciously into the shadow.
"Now," she said, "I understand. You, of course, anticipated this."
"I didn't," said Sproatly with a decision which carried conviction with it. "I certainly saw them at the hotel, but how could I imagine that they had anything of the kind in view?"
He broke off for a moment, and waved his hand. "After all," he added, "what right have you to think it now?"
Mrs. Hastings laughed somewhat harshly. "Unfortunately, I have my eyes, but I'll admit that there's a certain obligation on me to make quite certain before going any further. That's why I want you to ascertain where he checked his baggage to."
"I'm afraid that's more than I'm willing to undertake. Do you consider it advisable to set the station agent wondering about the thing? Besides, once or twice in my career appearances have been rather badly against me, and I'm not altogether convinced yet."
Mrs. Hastings let the matter drop, and they went back rather silently to the hotel, while as soon as supper was over she bade Sproatly get their waggon out and drove away with Agatha. She said very little to the girl during the long, cold journey, and they had no opportunity of private conversation when they reached the homestead where they were to spend the night, which was, as it happened, a relief to Agatha. She hated herself for the thought in her mind, but everything seemed to warrant it, and it would not be driven out. She had heard what Gregory had called Sally at the hotel, and the fact that he must have bought his ticket and checked his baggage earlier in the afternoon when there was nobody about, and then had run down with Sally at the last moment, evidently in order to escape observation, was very significant.
She drove home next day, and on the following morning a man who was driving in to Lander's brought Mrs. Hastings a note from Sproatly. It was very brief, and ran:
"Gregory arrived same night by Pacific train. It is evident he must have got off at the next station down the line."
Mrs. Hastings showed it to her husband.
"I'm afraid we have been too hasty. What am I to do with this?" she said.
Hastings smiled. "Since you ask my advice, I'd put it into the stove."
"But it clears the man. Isn't it my duty to show it to Agatha?"
"Well," said Hastings reflectively, "I'm not sure that it is your duty to put ideas into her mind when you can't be quite certain that she has entertained them."
"I should be greatly astonished if she hadn't," said the lady drily.
Hastings made a little whimsical gesture. "Oh," he said, "you'll no doubt do what you think wisest. In a general way, when you come to me for advice you have made your mind up, and only expect me to tell you that you're right."
Mrs. Hastings thought over the matter for another hour or two. For one thing, Agatha's quiet manner puzzled her, and she did not know that the girl had spent one night in an agony of anger and humiliation, and had then become sensible of a relief that she was ashamed of. There was, however, no doubt that while she blamed herself for it, and in some degree for what had happened, she did feel relief. She was sitting alone for the time being beside the stove in a shadowy room while the light died off the snowy prairie outside, when Mrs. Hastings came softly in and sat down beside her.
"My dear," she said, "it's rather difficult to speak of, but that little scene at the station must have hurt you."
Agatha looked at her quietly and searchingly, but there was only sympathy in her face, and she leaned forward impulsively.
"Oh," she said, "it hurt me horribly, because I feel it was my fault. I was the cause of it."
"How could that be?"
"If I had only been kinder to him he would, perhaps, never have thought of her. I must have made it clear that he jarred upon me. I drove him" – and Agatha turned her face away, while her voice grew a trifle strained – "into that woman's arms. No doubt she was ready to make the most of the opportunity."
Mrs. Hastings decided that the girl's scorn and disgust which had prompted the last outbreak were perfectly natural, but they were, as it happened, not quite warranted.
"In the first place," she said, "I think you had better read this note."
Agatha took it from her, and there was light enough left to show that the blood had crept into her face when she laid it down again. For almost a minute she sat very still.
"It is a great relief to know that I was wrong – in one respect, but you must not think I hated this girl because Gregory had preferred her to me," she said at length. "When the first shock had passed, there was an almost horrible satisfaction in feeling that he had released me – at any cost. I suppose I shall always be ashamed of that."
She broke off a moment, and her voice was very quiet when she went on again.
"Still," she added, "what Sproatly says does not alter the case so very much after all. It can't free me of my responsibility. If I hadn't driven him, Gregory would not have gone to her."
"You consider that in itself a very dreadful thing?"
Agatha looked at her with suddenly lifted head. "Of course," she said. "Can you doubt it?"
Her companion laughed, though there was a little gleam in her eyes, for this was an opportunity she had been waiting for.
"Then," she said, "you spoke like an Englishwoman – of station – just out from the Old Country – but I'm going to try to disabuse you of one impression. Sally, to put it crudely, is quite good enough for Gregory. In fact, if she had been my daughter I'd have kept him away from her. To begin with, once you strip Gregory of his little surface graces, and his clean English intonation, how does he compare with the men you meet out here? What does his superiority consist of? Is he truer or kinder than you have found most of them to be? Has he a finer courage, or a more resolute endurance – a greater capacity for labour, or a clearer knowledge of the calling by which he makes his living?"
Agatha did not answer. She could not protest that Gregory possessed any of these qualities, and her companion went on again.
"Has he even a more handsome person? I could point to a dozen men between here and the railroad, whose clean, self-denying life has set a stamp on them that Gregory will never wear. To descend to perhaps the lowest point of all, has he more money? We know he wasted what he had – probably in indulgence – and there is a mortgage on his farm. Has he any sense of honour? He let Sally believe he was in love with her before you even came out here, and of late, while he still claimed you, he has gone back to her. Can't you get away from your point of view, and realise what kind of man he is?"
Agatha turned her head away. "Ah!" she said, "I realised him – several months ago. They were rather painful months to me. But you are quite sure he was in love with Sally before I came out?"
"Well," said Mrs. Hastings, "his conduct suggested it." Then she laid a caressing hand on the girl's shoulder. "You tried to keep faith with him. Tried desperately, I think. Did you succeed?"
Agatha contrived to meet her companion's eyes. "At least, I would have married him."
"Then," said Mrs. Hastings, "I can forgive Gregory even his treachery, and you have no cause to pity him. Sally's simple – primitive, you would call her – but she's clever and capable in all practical things, She will bear with Gregory when you would turn from him in dismay, and when it's necessary she will not shrink from putting a little judicious pressure on him in a way you could not have done. It may sound incomprehensible, but that girl will lead or drive Gregory very much further than he could have gone with you. She doesn't regard him as perfection, but she loves him."
She broke off, and there was for several minutes a tense silence in the little shadowy room. It had grown almost dark, and the square of the window glimmered faintly with the dim light flung up by the snow.
Then Agatha turned slowly in her chair. "Thank you," she said in a low voice. "You have taken a heavy weight off my mind."
She paused a moment, and then added, "You have been a good friend all along. It was supreme good fortune that placed me in your hands."
Mrs. Hastings patted her shoulder, and then went out quietly, and Agatha lay still in her chair beside the stove. It snapped and crackled cheerfully, but save for that there was a restful quietness, and the room was cosily warm, though she could hear a little icy wind wail about the building. It swept her thoughts away to the frozen North, and she realised what it had cost her to keep faith with Gregory as she pictured a little snow-sheeted schooner hemmed in among the floes, and two or three worn-out men hauling a sled painfully over the ridged and furrowed ice. The man who had gone up into that great desolation had been endued with an almost fantastic sense of honour, and now he might never even know that she loved him. She admitted that she had loved him several months ago.