Part 51 (1/2)

”And so, for fear you should lose it, you did not strike the spark?

Well, I think that was wise. It would certainly have cost you one thing which you seem to value,” she said.

This was vague, but it seemed to Sewell that there could be only one meaning to it. What he had feared to lose was not yet beyond his reach.

He did not know that there were in the girl qualities which would have made her a successful Pompadour. Just then her craving for influence was irresistible; but she swept away from the topic with a swift smile expressive only of the indifference which of all the feelings that she could show he most shrank from.

”Still, to be practical, how could the blaze have spread?” she said. ”It would have smouldered out in one snow-bound valley, and in the spring there would have been a very inglorious downfall to the strictly limited Utopia.”

Sewell was nettled. There was, though it was seldom apparent, vanity in him, as both Hetty and Grace had guessed. Her blame he could have borne, but there was a sting in her smile. That she should think him a visionary schemer led away by his imagination, and without the faculty of execution, hurt him.

”The blaze would have leapt the snowy barriers,” he said. ”In fact, that was all arranged. Then it would have flashed from range to range across to the Yukon. One tolerably big bonfire has been waiting some time ready for lighting. I had only to send the message. I think you know why I didn't.”

Grace saw his eyes, and understood the look in them. It was suggestive of pa.s.sionate admiration. She also knew that a word would dispel it, perhaps forever, but she was lost in the game now, and what the man might think of her afterwards did not matter.

”Then there is a road out--beside the one you made to the settlement? It must be to Westerhouse?” she said.

”Yes,” answered Sewell simply. ”I have been there.”

Grace had just five minutes left, and a task before her which, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, she could scarcely have expected to accomplish; but she had to deal with a man who was, after all, of her own caste, a man with a deep vein of vanity in him, who was also in love with her.

The latter fact had been apparent for some little while, and she let him see now that she recognized it, while during the next few minutes she used every attribute with which Nature had endowed her, as well as art of a very delicate description. In fact, Grace had never until then exactly realized her own capabilities.

Neither Sewell nor she could afterwards remember all that she said, and in fact she said very little, though that little was suggestive; there was no great need for a girl with her patrician beauty to waste words unduly when she had her eyes. In any case, Sewell was as wax beneath her hands, and when she had finished with him she knew that the mountain barrier between the Green River country and Westerhouse was not impa.s.sable, and how the one gorge ran that traversed it. If Sewell fancied she appreciated the pa.s.sion which had led him to do so much for her, that was his affair. There was, however, a curious glow in his eyes when he rose as the major came in.

x.x.xI

BROKEN IDOLS

Coulthurst sat with a big hand clenched on the table and a grim look in his face when Sewell left him, nor did he turn his head until Grace, who came softly out of the inner room, sat down close by him.

”You can't come to terms, father?” she said.

”We can't,” and there was an ominous sparkle in Coulthurst's eyes. ”I'm not sure that I wish to now. In fact, I've borne quite as much as I'm willing to put up with from both of them, and there's some reason, after all, in Esmond's plan. He'll give them another week, and then we'll cut our way in.”

”It's not your affair,” and Grace started visibly. ”You are the Gold Commissioner.”

Coulthurst smiled. ”I am also ent.i.tled to the rank of major, and that, after all, means a good deal.”

Grace mastered her apprehension, for she realized the major's point of view and indeed concurred with it.

”There is no other way than the one you are thinking of?” she asked.

”There are two,” said Coulthurst drily. ”We can sit still and starve, or march out and leave the valley in the possession of the miners while we try to break through the snow. Neither of them, however, commends itself to Esmond or me.”

”Of course!” said Grace, with a little flush in her face, which, however, faded suddenly. ”But suppose one or two of the troopers were killed while you forced the barricade?”

”Then,” said Coulthurst, ”our friends Ingleby and Sewell would certainly be hung.”

The major's terseness was more convincing than a great deal of argument, and Grace saw what she must do. The pride of station was strong in her, so strong, in fact, that she would never have come down to Ingleby's level. It was only because he had shown that he could force his way to hers--at least, as it was likely to be regarded in that country--that she had listened to him. When the grapple became imminent that pride alone would have driven her to take part with const.i.tuted authority instead of what she considered the democratic rabble. Then there was the peril to her father and to Ingleby. He must be saved--against himself, if it should be necessary.