Part 38 (1/2)

BARBARA IS MERCILESS.

It was about eight o'clock in the evening when Brooke stopped a moment as he entered the verandah of Devine's house, which stood girt about by sombre pines on a low rise divided by a waste of blackened stumps and branches from the outskirts of Vancouver city. Beneath him rose the cl.u.s.tering roofs and big electric lights, and a little lower still a broad track of silver radiance, athwart which a great s.h.i.+p rode with every spar silhouetted black as ebony, streaked the inlet. Though the frost was arctic in the ranges he had left a few days ago, it was almost warm down there, and he felt that he would have preferred to linger on the verandah, or even go back to his hotel, for the front of the wooden house was brilliantly lighted, and he could hear the chords of a piano.

It was evident that Mrs. Devine was entertaining, and standing there, draped from neck to ankles in an old fur coat, he felt that he with his frost-nipped face and hard, scarred hands would be distinctly out of place amidst an a.s.sembly of prosperous citizens, while he was by no means certain how Mrs. Devine or Barbara would receive him. Often as he had thought of the latter, since he made his confession, he felt scarcely equal to meeting her just then. Still, it was necessary that he should see Devine, who was away at the neighboring city of New Westminster, when Brooke called at his office soon after the Pacific express arrived that afternoon, but had left word that he would be at home in the evening and would expect him; and flinging his cigar away he moved towards the door.

A Chinese house boy took his coat from him in the hall, and as he stood under the big lamp it happened that Barbara came out of an adjacent door with two companions. Brooke felt his heart throb, though he did not move, and the girl, who turned her head a moment in his direction, crossed the hall, and vanished through another door. Then he smiled very grimly, for, though she made no sign of being aware of his presence, he felt that she had seen him. This was no more than he had expected, but it hurt nevertheless. In the meanwhile the house boy had also vanished, and it was a minute or two later when Mrs. Devine appeared, but Brooke could not then or afterwards decide whether she had heard the truth concerning him, for, though this seemed very probable, he knew that Barbara could be reticent, and surmised that Devine did not tell his wife everything. In any case, she did not shake hands with him.

”My husband, who has just come home, is waiting for you in his smoking-room,” she said. ”It is the second door down the corridor.”

Brooke fancied that she could have been a trifle more cordial, but the fact that she sent n.o.body to show him the way, at least, was readily accounted for in a country where servants of any kind are remarkably scarce. It also happened that while he proceeded along the corridor one of Barbara's companions turned to her.

”Did you see the man in the hall as we pa.s.sed through?” she said. ”I didn't seem to recognize him.”

Barbara was not aware that her face hardened a trifle, but her companion noticed that it did. She had certainly seen the man, and had felt his eyes upon her, while it also occurred to her that he looked worn and haggard, and she had almost been stirred to compa.s.sion. He had made no claim to recognition, but his face had not been quite expressionless, and she had seen the wistfulness in it. There was, in fact, a certain forlornness about his att.i.tude which had its effect on her, and it was, perhaps, because of this she had suddenly hardened herself against him.

”He is a Mr. Brooke--from the mine,” she said.

”Brooke!” said her companion. ”The man from the Dayspring? I should like to talk to him.”

Barbara made a little gesture, the meaning of which was not especially plain. She had read the sensational account of the journey Brooke and the doctor had made through the ranges, which had by some means been supplied the press. It made it plain to her that the man was doing and enduring a good deal, and she was not disposed to be unduly severe upon a repentant offender, even though she fancied that nothing he could do would ever reinstate him in the place he once held in her estimation.

The difficulty, however, was that she could not be sure he was contrite at all, or had not sent that story to the press himself with a purpose, though she realized that the last course was a trifle unlikely in his case.

”Since Grant Devine will probably bring him in you may get your wish,”

she said, indifferently.

Devine in the meanwhile was gravely turning over several pieces of broken rock which Brooke had handed him.

”Yes,” he said, ”that's most certainly galena, and carrying good metal by the weight of it. How much of it's lead and how much silver I naturally don't know yet, but, anyway, it ought to leave a good margin on the smelting. You haven't proved the vein?”

”No,” said Brooke, ”I fancy we are only on the edge of it, but it would have cost me two or three weeks' work to break out enough of rock to form any very clear opinion alone, and I was scarcely up to it. It occurred to me that I had better come down and get the necessary men, though I'm not sure we can contrive to feed them or induce them to come.”

Devine nodded. ”You must have had the toughest kind of time!” he said.

”Well, we'll bid double wages, and you can offer that freight contractor his own figure to bring provisions in.”

He stopped abruptly with a glance at Brooke's haggard face. ”I guess you can hold out another month or two.”

”Of course,” said Brooke, quietly.

”It's worth while. Allonby was quite dead when you got back to him?”

”Yes, I and the doctor buried him. We used giant powder.”

Devine laid down his cigar. ”It was a little rough on Allonby, for it was his notion that the ore was there, and now, when it seems we've struck it, it's not going to be any use to him. I guess that man put a good deal more than dollars into the mine.”

Brooke, who had lived with Allonby, knew that this was true, but Devine made a little abrupt gesture which seemed to imply that after all that aspect of the question did not greatly concern them.

”I'll send you every man we can raise,” he said. ”I've got quite a big credit through from London, and we can cut expenses by letting up a little on the Canopus.”

”But you expected a good deal from that mine.”