Part 55 (1/2)

Evelyn listened with confused emotions and a softened face. She was convinced of the truth of the simple tale, and the thought of Vane's keeping his moneyed friends and directors waiting in Vancouver in order that a tired child might rest and gather sh.e.l.ls upon a sunny beach stirred her deeply. It was so characteristic; exactly what she would have expected him to do.

”Thank you,” she said quietly, when Kitty had finished; and then, flinging off the last of her reserve, she asked a number of questions about Drayton and about Celia's affairs.

Before her visitors left, all three were on friendly terms; but Evelyn was glad when they took their departure. She wanted to be alone to think.

In spite of the relief of which she was conscious, her thoughts were far from pleasant. Foremost among them figured a crus.h.i.+ng sense of shame. She had wickedly misjudged a man who had given her many proofs of the fineness of his character; the evil she had imputed to him was born of her own perverted imagination. She was no better than the narrow-minded, conventional Pharisees she detested, who were swift to condemn out of the uncleanness of their self-righteous hearts. Then, as she began to reason, it flashed upon her that she was, perhaps, wronging herself. Her mind had been cunningly poisoned by an utterly unscrupulous and wholly detestable woman, and she flamed out into a fit of imperious anger against Jessy.

She had a hazy idea that this was not altogether reasonable, for she was to some extent fastening the blame she deserved upon another person's shoulders; but it did not detract from the comfort the indulgence in her indignation brought her.

When she had grown a little calmer, Mrs. Nairn came in; and Mrs. Nairn was a discerning lady. It was not difficult to lead Evelyn on to speak of her visitors, for the girl's pride was broken and she felt in urgent need of sympathy; but when she had described the interview she felt impelled to avoid any discussion of the more important issues, even with the kindly Scotch lady.

”I was surprised at the girls' manner,” she concluded. ”It must have been embarra.s.sing to them; but they were really so delicate over it, and they had so much courage.”

Mrs. Nairn smiled.

”Although one of them has traveled with third-rate strolling companies and the other has waited in a hotel? Weel, maybe your surprise was natural. Ye canna all at once get rid of the ideas and prejudices ye were brought up with.”

”I suppose that was it,” replied Evelyn thoughtfully.

Her companion's eyes twinkled.

”Then, if ye're to live among us happily, ye'll have to try. In the way ye use the words, some of the leading men in this country were no brought up at all.”

”Do you imagine that I'm going to live here?”

Mrs. Nairn gathered up one or two articles she had brought into the room with her and moved toward the door, but before she reached it she looked back with a laugh.

”It occurred to me that the thing was no altogether impossible.”

An hour afterward, Evelyn and Mrs. Nairn went down into the town, and in one of the streets they came upon Jessy leaving a store. The latter was not lacking in a.s.surance and she moved toward them with a smile; but Evelyn gazed at her with a total disregard of her presence and walked quietly on. There was neither anger nor disdain in her att.i.tude; to have shown either would have been a concession she could not make. The instincts of generations of gently-reared Englishwomen were aroused, as well as the revulsion of an untainted nature from something unclean.

Jessy's cheeks turned crimson and a malevolent light flashed into her eyes as she crossed the street. Mrs. Nairn noticed her expression and smiled at her companion.

”I'm thinking it's as weel ye met Jessy after she had got the boat for Carroll,” she commented.

The remark was no doubt justified, but the fact that Jessy had been able to offer valuable a.s.sistance failed to soften Evelyn toward her. It was merely another offense.

In the meanwhile, the powerful tug steamed northward, towing the sloop, which would be required, and after landing the rescue party at the inlet steamed away again. Before she had disappeared Carroll began his march, and his companions long remembered it. Two of them were accustomed to packing surveyors' stores through the seldom-trodden bush and the others had worked in logging camps and chopped new roads, but though they did not spare themselves, they lacked their leader's animus. Carroll, with all his love of ease, could rise to meet an emergency, and he wore out his companions before the journey was half done. He scarcely let them sleep; he fed them on canned stuff to save delay in lighting fires; and he grew more feverishly impatient with every mile they made. He showed it chiefly by the tight set of his lips and the tension of his face, though now and then when fallen branches or thickets barred the way he fell upon the obstacles with the ax in silent fury. For the rest, he took the lead and kept it, and the others, following with shoulders aching from the pack-straps and labored breath, suppressed their protests.

Like many another made in that country, it was a heroic journey; one in which every power of mind and body was taxed to the limit. Delay might prove fatal. The loads were heavy; fatigue seized the shrinking flesh, but the unrelenting will, trained in such adventures, mercilessly spurred it on. Toughened muscle is useful and in the trackless North can seldom be dispensed with; but man's strength does not consist of that alone: there are occasions when the stalwart fall behind and die.

In front of them, as they progressed, lay the unchanging forest, tangled, choked with fallen wreckage, laced here and there with stabbing thorns, appalling and almost impenetrable to the stranger. They must cleave their pa.s.sage, except where they could take to the creek for an easier way and wade through stingingly cold water or flounder over slippery fangs of rock and ice-encrusted stones. There was sharp frost among the ranges and the brush through which they tore their way was generally burdened with clogging snow. They went on, however, and on the last day Carroll drew some distance ahead of those who followed him. It was dark when he discovered that he had lost them, but that did not matter, for now and then faint moonlight came filtering down and he was leaving a plain trail behind. His shoulders were bleeding beneath the biting straps; he was on the verge of exhaustion; but he struggled forward, panting heavily and rending his garments to rags as he smashed through the brakes in the darkness.

The night--it seemed a very long one--was nearly over when he recognized the roar of a rapid that rang in louder and louder pulsations across the snow-sprinkled bush. He was not far from the end now, and he became conscious of an unnerving fear. The ground was ascending sharply, and when he reached the top of the slope the question from which he shrank would be answered for him--if there should be no blink of light among the serried trunks, he would have come too late.

He reached the summit and his heart leaped; then he clutched at a drooping branch to support himself, shaken by a reaction that sprang from relief. A flicker of uncertain radiance fell upon the trees ahead, and down the bitter wind there came the reek of pungent smoke. The bush was slightly more open, and Carroll broke into a run. Presently he came cras.h.i.+ng and stumbling into the light of the fire and then stopped, too stirred and out of breath to speak. Vane lay where the red glow fell upon his face, smiling up at him.

”Well,” he said, ”you've come. I've been expecting you, but on the whole I got along not so badly.”