Part 36 (1/2)

”You have probably heard nothing that makes this visit particularly welcome,” answered Millicent, bitterly, and the elder lady smiled.

”I guess folks are apt to make the most of the worst points in all of us,” she observed. ”But that is not what we are going to talk about.

You are an old friend of a man we are indebted to, and, just because I believe there's no meanness in Geoffrey Thurston, you are very welcome to the best that we can do for you. I will ask him over to meet you.”

Millicent flushed. Under the circ.u.mstances she was touched by the speaker's sincerity, and grateful for the way she expressed herself.

Perhaps it was this which prompted her to an almost involuntary outpouring of confidence.

”I am the woman who should have married him,” she said simply.

Mrs. Savine merely nodded, and dipped her needle somewhat blindly into the embroidery on her knee before she replied: ”I had guessed it already. You missed a very good husband, my dear. I don't want to force your confidence, but I imagine that you have some distress to bear, and I might help you. I have seen a good deal of trouble in my time.”

Millicent was unstable by nature. She was also excited and feverish.

Afterwards she wondered why a kindly word from a woman she knew so slightly should excite in her such a desire for advice and sympathy.

In spite of her occasional brusqueries, it was hard for anyone to say no to Mrs. Savine. So Millicent answered, with a sigh:

”I know it now when it is too late--no one knows it better. You do well to believe in Geoffrey Thurston.”

Mrs. Savine looked at her very keenly, then nodded. ”I believe in you, too. There! I guess you can trust me.”

Millicent bent her head, and her eyes were misty. A raw wound, which the frost had irritated, marred the delicate curve of her upper lip.

It became painfully visible.

”It is only fit that I should tell you, since I am your guest,” she said, touching the scar with one finger. ”That is the mark of my husband's hand, and I am leaving him forever because I would not connive at Geoffrey's ruin. Geoffrey is acting as trustee for my property, and I cannot leave for England without consulting him. So much is perhaps due to you, and--because of your kindness I should not like you to think too ill of me--I will tell you the rest. To begin with, Geoffrey has never shown me anything but kindness.”

Mrs. Savine gently patted the speaker's arm, and Millicent related what had led up to her journey, or part of it. When she had finished, the elder lady commented:

”You are doing a risky thing; but I can't quite blame you, and if I could, I would not do it now. You will stay right here until Geoffrey has fixed up all plans for your journey, and you can trust me to be kind to you. Still, there's one favor I'm going to ask. I want you to let me tell my niece as much of what you have told me as I think desirable. Remember, Geoffrey has been good to you.”

For a moment Millicent's face grew hard, and her eyes defiant. She smiled sadly as she answered: ”It is his due, and can make no difference now. Tell her what seems best.”

Meanwhile, Geoffrey was busy in the canon camp. With Black and Mattawa Tom beside him, he stood holding as symbol, both of equality and authority, a bright ax in his hand, while driller, laborer, and machine-tender, wondering greatly, were pa.s.sed in review before him.

Black had been boarded with a trust rancher some distance from the camp. At last a certain rock driller pa.s.sed in turn, and Tom from Mattawa explained: ”He's a friend of Walla Jake, and as I told you, the last man we put on.”

”That's the blame reptile who backed up Shackleby's story at the Blue Bird mine,” cried Black, excitedly. ”If there's anyone up to mischief, you can bet all you've got he's the man.”

”Stop there, you!” Geoffrey's voice was sharp and stern. ”Cut him down if he feels for a revolver or tries to make a break of it, section foreman. Come here, close in behind him, you two.”

After a swift glance over his shoulder the man who was summoned advanced, scowling darkly. He sullenly obeyed Geoffrey's second command, ”Stand there--now a few steps aside,” leaving his footprints clearly outlined in a patch of otherwise untrodden snow.

”Good!” observed Geoffrey. ”Lay your template [Transcriber's note: corrected from ”templet”] on those marks, Tom.” After the foreman had produced a paper pattern which fitted them, Thurston added:

”We're going to make a prisoner of you, and jail you ourselves, until we can get a formal warrant. What for? Well, you're going to be tried for conspiracy among the other things. You see that pattern? It fits the foot of a man who went out one night with a spy Shackleby sent over to see how and when you would play the devil with our work in the canon. It even shows the stump of the filed-off creeper-spike on your right boot. There's no use protesting--a friend of yours here will help us to trace your career back to the finding of the Blue Bird mine.

Take him along and lock him into the galvanized store shed.”

The prisoner was taken away, and Geoffrey turned to his foreman.

”He was in the drilling gang, Tom?”

”Juss so! Working under the wall bed of the canon.”