Part 57 (1/2)

”The reception room's plumb full,” announced the maid, who was lately from the bush. ”If any more folks come along, I sure won't know where to put 'em.”

Now that the door was open, Evelyn could hear a murmur of voices on the floor below, and the next moment the bell rang violently again. It struck her as a testimonial to the injured man. Vane had not spent a long time in Vancouver, but he had the gift of making friends. Having heard of the sloop's arrival, they had come to inquire for him, and there was obviously a number of them.

Mrs. Nairn glanced interrogatively at Carroll.

”It does no look as if they could be got rid of by a message.”

”I guess he's fit to see them,” Carroll answered, ”We'll hold a levee. If he'd only let me, I'd like to pose him a bit.”

Mrs. Nairn, with Evelyn's a.s.sistance, did so instead, rearranging the cus.h.i.+ons about the man, in spite of his confused and half-indignant protests; and during the next half-hour the room was generally full.

People walked in, made sympathetic inquiries, or exchanged cheerful banter, until Mrs. Nairn forcibly dismissed the last of them. After this, she declared that Vane must go to sleep, and paying no heed to his a.s.sertion that he had not the least wish to do so, she led her remaining companions away.

A couple of hours had pa.s.sed when she handed Evelyn a large tumbler containing a preparation of beaten eggs and milk.

”Ye might take him this and ask if he would like anything else,” she said. ”I'm weary of the stairs and I would no trust Minnie. She's handiest at spilling things.”

Carroll grinned.

”It's the third and, I'd better say firmly, the limit.”

Then he a.s.sumed an aggrieved expression as Evelyn moved off with the tray.

”I can't see why I couldn't have gone. I think I've discharged my duties as nurse satisfactorily.”

”I canna help ye thinking,” Mrs. Nairn informed him. ”But I would point out that ye have now and then been wrong.”

”That's a fact,” Carroll confessed.

Evelyn fully shared his suspicions. Her hostess's artifice was a transparent one, but she nevertheless fell in with it. She had seen Vane only in the company of others; this might be the same again to-morrow; and there was something to be said. By intuition as much as reason, she recognized that there was something working in his mind; something that troubled him and might trouble her. It excited her apprehension and animated her with a desire to combat it. That she might be compelled to follow an unconventional course did not matter. She knew this man was hers--and she could not let him go.

She entered his room collectedly. He was lying, neatly dressed, upon a couch with his shoulders raised against the end of it, for he had thrown the cus.h.i.+ons which supported him upon the floor. As she came in, he leaned down in an attempt to recover them, and finding himself too late looked up guiltily. The fact that he could move with so much freedom was a comfort to the girl. She set the tray down on a table near him.

”Mrs. Nairn has sent you this,” she said, and the laugh they both indulged in drew them together.

Then her mood changed and her heart yearned over him. He had gone away a strong, self-confident, prosperous man, and he had come back defeated, broken in fortune and terribly worn. Her pity shone in her softening eyes.

”Do you wish to sleep?” she asked.

”No,” Vane a.s.sured her; ”I'd a good deal rather talk to you.”

”I want to say something,” Evelyn confessed. ”I'm afraid I was rather unpleasant to you the evening before you sailed. I was sorry for it afterward; it was flagrant injustice.”

”Then I wonder why you didn't answer the letter I wrote at Nanaimo.”

”The letter? I never received one.”

Vane considered this for a few moments.

”After all,” he declared, ”it doesn't matter now. I'm acquitted?”