Part 40 (2/2)

Tisdale laughed softly. ”He heard most of them before I left Was.h.i.+ngton, and this is what he thinks.”

As he spoke, he took a letter from the table which he gave to Foster. It bore the official stamp and was an appointment to that position which Miles Feversham had so confidently hoped, with Marcia's aid, to secure.

”Well, that shows the President's good judgment!” Foster exclaimed and held out his hand. ”You are the one man broad enough to fit the place.”

After a moment he said, ”But it is going to leave you little time to devote to your own affairs. How about the Aurora?”

Tisdale did not reply directly. He rose and walked the length of the floor. ”That depends,” he said and stopped with his hands in his pockets to regard Foster with the upward, appraising look from under knitting brows. ”I presume, Stuart, you are through with the syndicate?”

Foster colored. ”I put in my resignation as mining engineer of the company shortly after I came out, at the beginning of the year.”

”And while you were in the interior,” pursued Tisdale, ”you were sent to the Aurora to make a report. What did you think of the mine?”

”I thought Frederic Morganstein would be safe in bonding the property if he could interest you in selling; it looked better to me than even Banks'

strike in the Iditarod. This season's clean-up should justify Weatherbee.”

”You mean in staying on at the risk of his reason and life?”

Foster nodded; a shadow crossed his open face. ”I mean everything but--his neglect to make final provision for his wife.”

Tisdale frowned. ”There is where you make your mistake. Weatherbee persisted as he did, in the face of defeat, for her sake.”

Foster laughed mirthlessly. ”The proofs are otherwise. Look at things, once, from her side,” he broke out. ”Think what it means to her to see you realizing, from a few hundred dollars you could easily spare, this big fortune. I know you've been generous, but after all, of what benefit to her is a bequest in your will, when now she has absolutely nothing but that hole in the Columbia desert? Face it, be reasonable; you always have been in every way but this. I don't see how you can be so hard, knowing her now as you do.”

Tisdale turned to the window. ”I have not been as hard as you think,” he said. ”But it was necessary, in order to carry out Weatherbee's plans, to-- do as I did.”

”That's the trouble.” Foster rose from his chair and went a few steps nearer Tisdale. ”You are the sanest man in the world in every way but one.

But you can't think straight when it comes to Weatherbee. There is where the north got its hold on you. Can't you see it? Look at it through my eyes, or any one's. You did for David Weatherbee what one man in a thousand might have done. And you've interested Lucky Banks in that reclamation project; you've gone on yourself with his developments at the Aurora. But there's one thing you've lost sight of--justice to Beatriz Weatherbee. You've done your best for him, but he is dead. Hollis, old man, I tell you he is dead. And she is living. You have sent her, the proudest, sweetest woman on G.o.d's earth, to brave out her life in that sage-brush wilderness. Can't you see you owe something to her?”

Tisdale did not reply. But presently he went over to his safe and took out the two doc.u.ments that were fastened together. This time it was the will he returned to its place; the other paper he brought to Foster. ”I am going to apologize for my estimate of Mrs. Weatherbee the night you sailed north,” he said. ”My judgment then, before I had seen her, was unfair; you were right. But I could hardly have done differently in any case. There was danger that she would dispose of a half interest in the Aurora at once, at any low price Frederic Morganstein might name. And you know the syndicate's methods. I did not want a Morganstein partners.h.i.+p. But, later, at the time I had my will drawn, I saw this way.”

Foster took the doc.u.ment, but he did not read it immediately; he stood looking at Tisdale. ”So you too were afraid of him. But I knew nothing about Lucky Banks' option. It worried me, those endless nights up there in the Iditarod, to think that in her extremity she might marry Frederic Morganstein. There was a debt that pressed her. Did you know about that?”

”Yes. She called it a 'debt of honor.'”

”And you believed, as I did, that it was a direct loan to cover personal expenses. After I came home, I found out she borrowed the money originally of Miss Morganstein, to endow a bed in the children's hospital. Think of it! And Mrs. Feversham, who took it off her sister's hands, transferred the note to Morganstein.”

Tisdale did not say anything, but his rugged face worked a little, and he turned again to look out into the night. Foster moved nearer the reading-lamp and unfolded the doc.u.ment. It was a deed conveying, for a consideration of one dollar, a half interest in the Aurora mine to Beatriz Silva Gonzales Weatherbee; provided said half interest be not sold, or parceled, or in any way disposed of for a period of five years. Her share of the profits above operating expenses was to be paid in semi-annual dividends, and, as in the will, Stuart Emory Foster was named as trustee.

Foster folded the doc.u.ment slowly. His glance moved to Tisdale, and his eyes played every swift change from contrition to grat.i.tude. Hollis turned. ”I want you to take the management of the whole mine,” he said mellowly. ”At a salary of five thousand a year to start with. And as soon as you wish, you may deliver this deed.”

Foster's lips trembled a little. ”You've made a mistake,” he said unsteadily. Then: ”Why don't you take it to her yourself, Hollis?” he asked.

Tisdale was silent. He turned back to the window, and after an interval, Foster went over and stood beside him, looking down on the harbor lights.

His arm went up around Tisdale's shoulder as he said: ”If Weatherbee could know everything now; if he had loved her, put her first always, as you believe, do you think he would be any happier to see her punished like this?”

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