Part 52 (2/2)
”The book? I don't know that I shall ever finish it. I feel cut adrift, as if there were no use in working and I hadn't a purpose left. First George went, and then Clarence--so far, there was always some one to think of--and now I'm all alone.”
She broke out into open sobbing and Lisle, feeling very sympathetic and half dismayed, awkwardly tried to soothe her.
”I'm better,” she said at last. ”It was very foolish, but I couldn't help it. I think we'll go back to the others.”
He gave her his arm, for the way was rough, but as they approached the camp she stopped a moment amid the shadow and stillness of the great fir trunks.
”I have done with the river--I think I am afraid of it,” she confessed.
”Can't we get away early to-morrow?”
Lisle said it should be arranged and she turned to him gratefully.
”One can always rely on you! You're just like George was in many ways.
It's curious that whenever I'm in trouble I think of him--”
She seemed on the verge of another breakdown, and she laid her hand in his for a moment before she went from him hurriedly with a low, ”Good night!”
Lisle strolled back to the river and lighted his pipe. He had noticed and thought it significant that she spoke more of the brother whom she had lost several years ago than of the lover who had perished recently; but, from whatever cause it sprung, her distress troubled him.
His thoughts were presently interrupted by Nasmyth.
”There's a thing I'd better tell you, Vernon,” he said, sitting down near by. ”The night you were half drowned I emptied the cache and, without making any note of what was in it, pitched everything into the river.”
”So I discovered. At least, when I managed with some trouble to reach the place, I knew it was either you or Gladwyne, and I blamed you.”
”Well?”
”I've decided,” Lisle said gravely, ”that you did quite right. It's the end of that story.”
”Then you have abandoned the purpose you had in view?”
”I've been thinking hard, and it seems to me that if Vernon were with me now, the last thing that would please him would be to see the two women suffer; he was a big man in every way. There's another thing--he left no relations to consider.”
Nasmyth laid a hand on his shoulder in a very expressive way.
”I felt all along that you'd come to look at it like that!”
”But there's Batley; he has some suspicions.”
”I can silence him,” promised Nasmyth. ”The man has his good points, after all.”
”That's so,” Lisle agreed. ”Still, I'll come straight across to England and tackle him if you fail. If it's a question of money, you can count me in--I've been prospering lately.” He rose and knocked out his pipe.
”That's the last word on the matter.”
They went back to camp, and starting soon after sunrise the next morning they reached a settlement on the railroad after a comparatively easy journey; and that evening Lisle stood with a heavy heart beside the track while the big cars moved away, his eyes fixed on a woman's figure that leaned out from a vestibule platform, waving a hand to him.
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