Part 16 (1/2)

Hawtrey swung the whip when they reached the top, and the team plunged furiously down the slope. He straightened himself in his seat with both hands on the reins, and Agatha held her breath when she felt the light vehicle tilt as the wheels on one side sank deep in a rut. Something seemed to crack, and she saw the off horse stumble and plunge. The other horse flung its head up, Hawtrey shouted something, and there was a great smas.h.i.+ng and snapping of undergrowth and fallen branches as they drove in among the birches. The team stopped, and Hawtrey, who sprang down, floundered noisily among the undergrowth, while another thud of hoofs and rattle of wheels grew louder behind them up the trail. In a minute or two Hawtrey came back and lifted Agatha down.

”It's the trace broken. I had to make the holes with my knife, and the string's torn through,” he explained. ”Voltigeur got it round his feet, and, as usual, tried to bolt. We'll make the others pull up and take you in.”

They went back to the trail together, and reached it just as Hastings reined in his team. Hastings got down and walked back with Hawtrey to the stalled wagon. It was a minute or two before they reappeared again, and Mrs. Hastings, who had alighted, drew Hawtrey aside.

”I almost think it would be better if you didn't come any further to-night,” she said.

”Why?” Gregory asked sharply.

”I can't help thinking that Agatha would prefer it. For one thing, she's rather jaded, and wants quiet.”

”You feel sure of that?”

There was something in the man's voice which suggested that he was not quite satisfied, and Mrs. Hastings was silent a moment.

”It's good advice, Gregory,” she said. ”She'll be better able to face the situation after a night's rest.”

”Does it require much facing?” Hawtrey asked dryly.

Mrs. Hastings turned from him with a sign of impatience. ”Of course it does. Anyway, if you're wise you'll do what I suggest, and ask no more questions.”

Then she got into the wagon, and Hawtrey stood still beside the trail, feeling unusually thoughtful as they drove away.

CHAPTER XI

AGATHA'S DECISION

It was with an expectancy which was toned down by misgivings that Hawtrey drove over to the homestead where Agatha was staying the next afternoon. The misgivings were not unnatural, for he had been chilled by the girl's reception of him on the previous day, and her manner afterwards had, he felt, left something to be desired. Indeed, when she drove away with Mrs. Hastings, he had considered himself an injured man.

His efforts to mend the harness, and extricate the wagon in the dark, which occupied him for an hour, had helped partly to drive the matter from his mind, and when he reached his homestead rather late that night he went to sleep, and slept soundly until sunrise. Hawtrey was a man who never brooded over his troubles beforehand, and this was one reason why he did not always cope with them successfully when they could no longer be avoided.

When he had eaten his breakfast, however, he became sensible of a certain pique against both Mrs. Hastings and Agatha. In planning for the day he was forced to remember that he had no hired man, and that there was a good deal to be done. He decided that it might be well to wait until the afternoon before he called on Agatha, and for several hours he drove his team through the crackling stubble. His doubts and irritation grew weaker as he worked, and when, later, he drove into sight of the Hastings homestead, his buoyant temperament was beginning to rea.s.sert itself. Clear suns.h.i.+ne streamed down upon the prairie out of a vault of cloudless blue, and he felt that any faint shadow that might have arisen between him and the girl could be readily swept away. He was a little less sure of this when he saw Agatha, who sat near an open window, in a scantily furnished match-boarded room. She had not slept at all. Her eyes were heavy, but there was a look of resolution in them which seemed out of place just then, and it struck him that she had lost the freshness which had been her distinguis.h.i.+ng charm in England.

She rose when he came in, and then, to his astonishment, drew back a pace or two when he moved impulsively towards her.

”No,” she said, with a hand raised restrainingly, ”you must hear what I have to say, and try to bear with me. It is a little difficult, Gregory, but it must be said at once.”

Gregory stood still, gazing at her with consternation in his face, and for a moment she looked steadily at him. It was a painful moment, for she was gifted with a clearness of vision which she almost longed to be delivered from. She saw that the impression which had brought her a vague sense of dismay on the previous afternoon was wrong. The trouble was that he had not changed at all. He was what he had always been, and she had merely deceived herself when she had permitted her girlish fancy to endow him with qualities and graces which he had never possessed.

There was, however, no doubt that she had still a duty toward him.

He spoke first with a trace of hardness in his voice.

”Then,” he rejoined, ”won't you sit down? This is naturally a little--embarra.s.sing--but I'll try to listen.”

Agatha sank into a seat by the open window, for she felt physically worn out, and before her there was a task from which she shrank.

”Gregory,” she began, ”I feel that we have come near making what might prove to be a horrible mistake.”

”We?” repeated Hawtrey, while the blood rose into his weather-darkened face. ”That means both of us.”