CONVINCING TESTIMONY
One afternoon three or four days after Carroll had sailed, Evelyn sat
alone in Mrs. Nairn's drawing-room, a prey to confused regrets and keen
anxiety. She had recovered from the first shock caused her by Carroll's
news, but though she could face the situation more calmly, she could find
no comfort anywhere--Vane was lying, helpless and famishing, in the
frost-bound wilderness. She knew that she loved the man; indeed, she had
really known it for some time, and it was that which had made Jessy's
revelation so bitter. Now, fastidious in thought and feeling as she was,
she wondered whether she had been too hard upon him; it was becoming more
and more difficult to believe that he could have justified her disgust
and anger; but this was not what troubled her most. She had sent him away
with cold disfavor. Now he was threatened by dangers. It was horrible to
think of what might befall him before assistance arrived, and yet she
could not drive the haunting dread out of her mind.
She was in this mood when a maid announced that two visitors wished to
see her; and when they were shown in, she found it difficult to hide her
astonishment as she recognized in Kitty the very attractive girl she had
once seen in Vane's company. It was this which prompted her to assume a
chilling manner, though she asked her guests to be seated. Neither of
them appeared altogether at her ease, and there was, indeed, a rather
ominous sparkle in Kitty's blue eyes.
"Mr. Carroll was in town not long ago," Kitty began bluntly. "Have you
had any news of him since he sailed?"
Evelyn did not know what to make of the question, and she answered
coldly.
"No; we do not expect any word for some time."
"I'm sorry. We're anxious about Mr. Vane."
On the surface, the announcement appeared significant, but the girl's
boldness in coming to her for news was inexplainable to Evelyn. Puzzled
as she was, her attitude became more discouraging.
"You know him then?"
Something in her tone made Celia's cheeks burn and she drew herself up.
"Yes," she said; "we know him, both of us. I guess it's astonishing to
you. But I met him first when he was poor, and getting rich hasn't
spoiled Mr. Vane."
Evelyn was once more puzzled. The girl's manner savored less of assurance
than of wholesome pride which had been injured. Kitty then broke in:
"We had no cards to send in; but I'm Kathleen Blake, and this is Celia
Hartley--it was her father sent Mr. Vane off to look for the spruce."
"Ah!" exclaimed Evelyn, a little more gently, addressing Celia. "I
understand that your father died."
Kitty flashed a commanding glance at Celia.
"Yes," the girl replied; "that is correct. He left me ill and worn out,
without a dollar, and I don't know what I should have done if Mr. Vane
hadn't insisted on giving Drayton a little money for me; on account, he
said, because I was a partner in the venture. Then Miss Horsfield got
some work among her friends for me to do at home. Mr. Vane must have
asked her to; it would be like him."
Evelyn sat silent a few moments. Celia had given her a good deal of
information in answer to a very simple remark; but she was most impressed
by the statement that Jessy, who had prejudiced her against Vane, had
helped the girl at his request. It was difficult to believe that she
would have done so had there been any foundation for her insinuations. If
Celia spoke the truth, and Evelyn somehow felt this was the case, the
whole thing was extraordinary.
"Now," continued Celia, "it's no way astonishing that I'm grateful to Mr.
Vane and anxious to hear whether Mr. Carroll has reached him." This was
spoken with a hint of defiance, but the girl's voice changed.
"I am anxious. It's horrible to think of a man like him freezing in
the bush."
Her concern was so genuine and yet somehow so innocent that Evelyn's
heart softened.
"Yes," she asserted, "it's dreadful." Then she asked a question. "Who's
the Mr. Drayton you mentioned?"
Kitty blushed becomingly; this was her lead.
"He's a kind of partner in the lumber scheme; I'm going to marry him.
He's as firm a friend of Mr. Vane's as any one. There's a reason for
that--I was in a very tight place once, left without money in a desolate
settlement where there was nothing I could do, when Mr. Vane helped me.
But perhaps that wouldn't interest you."
For a moment her doubts still clung to their hold in Evelyn's mind, and
then she suddenly drove the last of them out, with a stinging sense of
humiliation. She could not distrust this girl; it was Jessy's suggestion
that was incredible.
"It would interest me very much," she declared.
Kitty told her story effectively, but with caution, laying most stress
upon Vane's compassion for the child and her invalid mother. She was
rather impressed by Miss Chisholm, but she supposed that she was endowed
with some of the failing common to human nature.
Evelyn listened with confused emotions and a softened face. She was
convinced of the truth of the simple tale, and the thought of Vane's
keeping his moneyed friends and directors waiting in Vancouver in order
that a tired child might rest and gather shells upon a sunny beach
stirred her deeply. It was so characteristic; exactly what she would have
expected him to do.
"Thank you," she said quietly, when Kitty had finished; and then,
flinging off the last of her reserve, she asked a number of questions
about Drayton and about Celia's affairs.
Before her visitors left, all three were on friendly terms; but Evelyn
was glad when they took their departure. She wanted to be alone to think.
In spite of the relief of which she was conscious, her thoughts were far
from pleasant. Foremost among them figured a crushing sense of shame. She
had wickedly misjudged a man who had given her many proofs of the
fineness of his character; the evil she had imputed to him was born of
her own perverted imagination. She was no better than the narrow-minded,
conventional Pharisees she detested, who were swift to condemn out of the
uncleanness of their self-righteous hearts. Then, as she began to reason,
it flashed upon her that she was, perhaps, wronging herself. Her mind had
been cunningly poisoned by an utterly unscrupulous and wholly detestable
woman, and she flamed out into a fit of imperious anger against Jessy.
She had a hazy idea that this was not altogether reasonable, for she was
to some extent fastening the blame she deserved upon another person's
shoulders; but it did not detract from the comfort the indulgence in her
indignation brought her.
When she had grown a little calmer, Mrs. Nairn came in; and Mrs. Nairn
was a discerning lady. It was not difficult to lead Evelyn on to speak of
her visitors, for the girl's pride was broken and she felt in urgent need
of sympathy; but when she had described the interview she felt impelled
to avoid any discussion of the more important issues, even with the
kindly Scotch lady.
"I was surprised at the girls' manner," she concluded. "It must have been
embarrassing to them; but they were really so delicate over it, and they
had so much courage."
Mrs. Nairn smiled.
"Although one of them has traveled with third-rate strolling companies
and the other has waited in a hotel? Weel, maybe your surprise was
natural. Ye canna all at once get rid of the ideas and prejudices ye were
brought up with."
"I suppose that was it," replied Evelyn thoughtfully.
Her companion's eyes twinkled.
"Then, if ye're to live among us happily, ye'll have to try. In the way
ye use the words, some of the leading men in this country were no brought
up at all."
"Do you imagine that I'm going to live here?"
Mrs. Nairn gathered up one or two articles she had brought into the room
with her and moved toward the door, but before she reached it she looked
back with a laugh.
"It occurred to me that the thing was no altogether impossible."
An hour afterward, Evelyn and Mrs. Nairn went down into the town, and in
one of the streets they came upon Jessy leaving a store. The latter was
not lacking in assurance and she moved toward them with a smile; but
Evelyn gazed at her with a total disregard of her presence and walked
quietly on. There was neither anger nor disdain in her attitude; to have
shown either would have been a concession she could not make. The
instincts of generations of gently-reared Englishwomen were aroused, as
well as the revulsion of an untainted nature from something unclean.
Jessy's cheeks turned crimson and a malevolent light flashed into her
eyes as she crossed the street. Mrs. Nairn noticed her expression and
smiled at her companion.
"I'm thinking it's as weel ye met Jessy after she had got the boat for
Carroll," she commented.
The remark was no doubt justified, but the fact that Jessy had been able
to offer valuable assistance failed to soften Evelyn toward her. It was
merely another offense.
In the meanwhile, the powerful tug steamed northward, towing the sloop,
which would be required, and after landing the rescue party at the inlet
steamed away again. Before she had disappeared Carroll began his march,
and his companions long remembered it. Two of them were accustomed to
packing surveyors' stores through the seldom-trodden bush and the others
had worked in logging camps and chopped new roads, but though they did
not spare themselves, they lacked their leader's animus. Carroll, with
all his love of ease, could rise to meet an emergency, and he wore out
his companions before the journey was half done. He scarcely let them
sleep; he fed them on canned stuff to save delay in lighting fires; and
he grew more feverishly impatient with every mile they made. He showed it
chiefly by the tight set of his lips and the tension of his face, though
now and then when fallen branches or thickets barred the way he fell upon
the obstacles with the ax in silent fury. For the rest, he took the lead
and kept it, and the others, following with shoulders aching from the
pack-straps and labored breath, suppressed their protests.
Like many another made in that country, it was a heroic journey; one in
which every power of mind and body was taxed to the limit. Delay might
prove fatal. The loads were heavy; fatigue seized the shrinking flesh,
but the unrelenting will, trained in such adventures, mercilessly spurred
it on. Toughened muscle is useful and in the trackless North can seldom
be dispensed with; but man's strength does not consist of that alone:
there are occasions when the stalwart fall behind and die.
In front of them, as they progressed, lay the unchanging forest,
tangled, choked with fallen wreckage, laced here and there with stabbing
thorns, appalling and almost impenetrable to the stranger. They must
cleave their passage, except where they could take to the creek for an
easier way and wade through stingingly cold water or flounder over
slippery fangs of rock and ice-encrusted stones. There was sharp frost
among the ranges and the brush through which they tore their way was
generally burdened with clogging snow. They went on, however, and on the
last day Carroll drew some distance ahead of those who followed him. It
was dark when he discovered that he had lost them, but that did not
matter, for now and then faint moonlight came filtering down and he was
leaving a plain trail behind. His shoulders were bleeding beneath the
biting straps; he was on the verge of exhaustion; but he struggled
forward, panting heavily and rending his garments to rags as he smashed
through the brakes in the darkness.
The night--it seemed a very long one--was nearly over when he recognized
the roar of a rapid that rang in louder and louder pulsations across the
snow-sprinkled bush. He was not far from the end now, and he became
conscious of an unnerving fear. The ground was ascending sharply, and
when he reached the top of the slope the question from which he shrank
would be answered for him--if there should be no blink of light among the
serried trunks, he would have come too late.
He reached the summit and his heart leaped; then he clutched at a
drooping branch to support himself, shaken by a reaction that sprang from
relief. A flicker of uncertain radiance fell upon the trees ahead, and
down the bitter wind there came the reek of pungent smoke. The bush was
slightly more open, and Carroll broke into a run. Presently he came
crashing and stumbling into the light of the fire and then stopped, too
stirred and out of breath to speak. Vane lay where the red glow fell upon
his face, smiling up at him.
"Well," he said, "you've come. I've been expecting you, but on the whole
I got along not so badly."
Carroll flung off his pack and sat down beside the fire; then he fumbled
for his pipe and began to fill it hurriedly with trembling fingers. He
lighted it and flung away the match before he spoke.
"Sorry I couldn't get through sooner," he mumbled. "The stores on board
the sloop were spoiled; I had to go on to Vancouver. But there are things
to eat in my pack."
"Hand it across. I haven't been faring sumptuously the last few days. No,
sit still! I'm supple enough from the waist up."
He proved it by the way he leaned to and fro as he opened the pack and
distributed part of its contents among the cooking utensils. Carroll
assisted him now and then but he did not care to speak. The sight of the
man's gaunt face and the eagerness in his eyes prompted him to an
outbreak of feeling rather foreign to his nature, and he did not think
his companion would appreciate it. When the meal was ready, Vane looked
up at him.
"I've no doubt this journey cost you something--partner," he said.
Then they ate cheerfully, and Carroll, watching his friend's efforts with
appreciation, told his story in broken sentences. Afterward, they lighted
their pipes, but by and by Carroll's fell from his relaxing grasp.
"I can't get over this sleepiness," he explained. "I believe I disgraced
myself in Vancouver by going off in the most unsuitable places,"
"I dare say it was quite natural. Anyway, hadn't you better hitch
yourself a little farther from the fire?"
Carroll did so and lay still afterward, but Vane kept watch during the
rest of the night, until in the dawn the packers appeared.