Part 51 (2/2)
”It's coming!” he said hoa.r.s.ely. ”Coming in earnest!”
”Oh, let's stay!” cried Beatrice. ”I want to feel it's true!”
Harding laughed, but led her on, and presently they met the advancing rain. It beat, wonderfully refres.h.i.+ng, on their hot faces, and soon Beatrice's thin dress was soaked. Steam rose from the parched earth; there was a hothouse smell, a dull roar, and a rustle among the beaten gra.s.s, and the fading light was shut off by a curtain of falling water.
Alternating between happy laughter and silence, during which their thankfulness became too deep for speech, they hurried toward Harding's farm, and Beatrice threw her arms round Hester's neck when she met her at the door.
”Oh!” she cried. ”Our troubles are over! The rain! The rain!”
CHAPTER x.x.x
THE INHERITANCE
The rain lasted several days and saved the crops: the wheat, although somewhat damaged, was ripening fast.
As Lance drove home from one of his mysterious absences from the Grange, he looked out over the rippling fields with a sense of thankfulness in his boyish heart. Harding was not to be ruined after all! The rain had saved his fortune; and in Lance's pocket there was a paper that would clear his name.
Beatrice met him on the steps, but he brushed past her with a smile and hurried to his father's study, where he knew he would find the Colonel.
”I've been away several times, and now I must tell you why, sir,” he said. ”You will remember that I've declared my belief in Harding all along.”
”I've no doubt he feels properly grateful,” Mowbray remarked.
”I'm grateful to him. And now I have some satisfaction in being able to prove his innocence. Read this.”
He gave his father a note, and Mowbray read it aloud:
”'_I hereby declare that Craig Harding of Allenwood is a stranger to me.
I met him for the first and only time at the Rideau Hotel, Winnipeg, and I regret that I then claimed his acquaintance._'”
”It sounds conclusive. I see it's signed 'Coral Stanton, clairvoyante.'
May I ask how you came to meet this lady and get the doc.u.ment?”
”Both things needed some tact, sir,” Lance answered with a grin.
”So I should imagine. Rather a delicate business for one so young. You must have seen that your motives were liable to be misunderstood.”
Lance colored.
”I had to take the risk. As a matter of fact, things threatened to become embarra.s.sing at first. However, I got the statement.”
”What did you give for it?”
”A hundred dollars; what Miss Stanton was promised.”
”Then she was hired to act a part? But what made her willing to betray her employers?”
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