MRS. SAVINE SPEAKS HER MIND
Millicent slept brokenly while Helen carried her message, and awakening
feverish, felt relieved to discover that the girl was still absent.
Miss Savine was younger than herself, and of much less varied
experience, but the look in the girl's eyes hurt her, nevertheless.
"I am ashamed to force myself upon you," she said to Mrs. Savine, who
had shown her many small courtesies, "but I am afraid I cannot manage
the journey back to the railroad to-day. I must also see Mr. Thurston
before I leave for England, and it would be a great favor if I could
have the interview here."
"We are glad to have you with us," said Mrs. Savine, who was of kindly
nature and fancied she saw her opportunity. "Yes, I just mean it. The
journey has tried you so much that you are not fit for another now.
Besides, I have heard so much about you, that I want a talk with you."
"You have probably heard nothing that makes this visit particularly
welcome," answered Millicent, bitterly, and the elder lady smiled.
"I guess folks are apt to make the most of the worst points in all of
us," she observed. "But that is not what we are going to talk about.
You are an old friend of a man we are indebted to, and, just because I
believe there's no meanness in Geoffrey Thurston, you are very welcome
to the best that we can do for you. I will ask him over to meet you."
Millicent flushed. Under the circumstances she was touched by the
speaker's sincerity, and grateful for the way she expressed herself.
Perhaps it was this which prompted her to an almost involuntary
outpouring of confidence.
"I am the woman who should have married him," she said simply.
Mrs. Savine merely nodded, and dipped her needle somewhat blindly into
the embroidery on her knee before she replied: "I had guessed it
already. You missed a very good husband, my dear. I don't want to
force your confidence, but I imagine that you have some distress to
bear, and I might help you. I have seen a good deal of trouble in my
time."
Millicent was unstable by nature. She was also excited and feverish.
Afterwards she wondered why a kindly word from a woman she knew so
slightly should excite in her such a desire for advice and sympathy.
In spite of her occasional brusqueries, it was hard for anyone to say
no to Mrs. Savine. So Millicent answered, with a sigh:
"I know it now when it is too late--no one knows it better. You do
well to believe in Geoffrey Thurston."
Mrs. Savine looked at her very keenly, then nodded. "I believe in you,
too. There! I guess you can trust me."
Millicent bent her head, and her eyes were misty. A raw wound, which
the frost had irritated, marred the delicate curve of her upper lip.
It became painfully visible.
"It is only fit that I should tell you, since I am your guest," she
said, touching the scar with one finger. "That is the mark of my
husband's hand, and I am leaving him forever because I would not
connive at Geoffrey's ruin. Geoffrey is acting as trustee for my
property, and I cannot leave for England without consulting him. So
much is perhaps due to you, and--because of your kindness I should not
like you to think too ill of me--I will tell you the rest. To begin
with, Geoffrey has never shown me anything but kindness."
Mrs. Savine gently patted the speaker's arm, and Millicent related what
had led up to her journey, or part of it. When she had finished, the
elder lady commented:
"You are doing a risky thing; but I can't quite blame you, and if I
could, I would not do it now. You will stay right here until Geoffrey
has fixed up all plans for your journey, and you can trust me to be
kind to you. Still, there's one favor I'm going to ask. I want you to
let me tell my niece as much of what you have told me as I think
desirable. Remember, Geoffrey has been good to you."
For a moment Millicent's face grew hard, and her eyes defiant. She
smiled sadly as she answered: "It is his due, and can make no
difference now. Tell her what seems best."
Meanwhile, Geoffrey was busy in the canyon camp. With Black and Mattawa
Tom beside him, he stood holding as symbol, both of equality and
authority, a bright ax in his hand, while driller, laborer, and
machine-tender, wondering greatly, were passed in review before him.
Black had been boarded with a trust rancher some distance from the
camp. At last a certain rock driller passed in turn, and Tom from
Mattawa explained: "He's a friend of Walla Jake, and as I told you, the
last man we put on."
"That's the blame reptile who backed up Shackleby's story at the Blue
Bird mine," cried Black, excitedly. "If there's anyone up to mischief,
you can bet all you've got he's the man."
"Stop there, you!" Geoffrey's voice was sharp and stern. "Cut him
down if he feels for a revolver or tries to make a break of it, section
foreman. Come here, close in behind him, you two."
After a swift glance over his shoulder the man who was summoned
advanced, scowling darkly. He sullenly obeyed Geoffrey's second
command, "Stand there--now a few steps aside," leaving his footprints
clearly outlined in a patch of otherwise untrodden snow.
"Good!" observed Geoffrey. "Lay your template [Transcriber's note:
corrected from "templet"] on those marks, Tom." After the foreman had
produced a paper pattern which fitted them, Thurston added:
"We're going to make a prisoner of you, and jail you ourselves, until
we can get a formal warrant. What for? Well, you're going to be tried
for conspiracy among the other things. You see that pattern? It fits
the foot of a man who went out one night with a spy Shackleby sent over
to see how and when you would play the devil with our work in the
canyon. It even shows the stump of the filed-off creeper-spike on your
right boot. There's no use protesting--a friend of yours here will
help us to trace your career back to the finding of the Blue Bird mine.
Take him along and lock him into the galvanized store shed."
The prisoner was taken away, and Geoffrey turned to his foreman.
"He was in the drilling gang, Tom?"
"Juss so! Working under the wall bed of the canyon."
"That lets some light on to the subject. You can dismiss the others.
Come with me, Tom."
Twenty minutes later Geoffrey stood among the boulders that the
shrunken river had left exposed near the foot of a giant cliff which,
instead of overhanging, thrust forward a slanting spur into the rush of
water, and so formed a bend. It was one of the main obstacles
Geoffrey, who wondered at the formation, had determined to remove by
the simultaneous shock of several heavy blasting charges. To that end
a gang of men had long been drilling deep holes into the projecting
spur, and on the preceding day charges of high explosives had been sunk
in most of them with detonators and fuses ready coupled for connection
to the igniting gear. Geoffrey stood upon a boulder and looked up at
the tremendous face of rock which, rising above the spur, held up the
hill slope above. The stratification was looser than usual, and
several mighty masses had fallen from it into the river. There were
also crannies at its feet.
"You've seen all the drilled holes. Anything strike you yet?" inquired
Mattawa Tom.
"Yes," was the answer. "It occurs to me that French Louis said he
couldn't tally out all the sticks of giant powder that he'd stowed away
a week or two ago. I think you foolishly told him he couldn't count
straight."
"I did," admitted Tom from Mattawa. "Louis ain't great at counting,
and he allowed he'd never let go of the key to the powder magazine."
"I fancy a smart mechanic could make a key that would do as well,"
remarked Geoffrey. "It strikes me, also, after considering the strata
yonder, that, if sufficient shots were fired in those crannies, they
would bring the whole cliff and the hillside above it down on top of
us--you'll remember I cautioned you to drill well clear of the rock
face itself? Now, if coupled fuses were led from the shot holes we
filled to those we didn't, so that both would fire simultaneously,
nobody afterwards would find anything suspicious under several thousand
tons of debris. I'm inclined to think there are such fuses. Take your
shovel, and we'll look for them."
They worked hard for half an hour, and then Geoffrey chuckled. Lifting
what looked like a stout black cord from among the rubble where it was
carefully hidden, Mattawa Tom said: "This time I guess you've struck it
dead."
"Follow the thing up," Geoffrey commanded.
This was done, and further searching revealed the charges for which
they were searching, skillfully concealed in the crannies. Geoffrey's
face was grim as he said:
"It was planned well. They would have piled half yonder shoulder of
the range into the canyon if they had got their devilish will. Pull up
every fuse, and fix fresh detonators to all the charges. Change every
man in that gang, and never leave this spot except when the section
boss replaces you, until we're ready for firing. Thank Heaven that
will be in a few more days, and my nerves may hold out that long. I've
hardly had an hour's sleep in the last week, Tom."
While Geoffrey was acting in accordance with the warning she had
delivered, Helen was on her way back to the ranch with his assistant as
her escort. Helen had not forgotten that it was her remonstrance which
had originally obtained a humble appointment for English Jim. He had
several times visited the ranch with messages, and was accordingly
invited to enter when they reached the house. He recognized Mrs.
Leslie at once, but he could be discreet, and, warned by something in
her manner, addressed no word to her until he found opportunity for a
few moments' private speech before leaving.
"You remember me, I see," Millicent said, and English Jim bowed.
"I do; perhaps because I have reason to. Though most reluctant to say
so, I lost a valuable paper the last time I was in your presence, and
that paper was afterwards used against my employer. Pardon me for
speaking so plainly; you said you were a friend of Mr. Thurston's."
"You need not be diffident," replied Millicent, checking him with a
wave of her hand. "Suppose it was I who found the drawing? You would
be willing to keep silence in return for----"
It was English Jim who interrupted now. "In return for your solemn
promise to render no more assistance to our enemies. I do not forget
your kindness, and hate the painful necessity of speaking so to you,
but I am Thurston's man, soul and body."
"I ask your pardon," said Millicent. "Will you believe me if I say
that I lately ran some risk to bring Mr. Thurston a much-needed
warning? I am going to England in a day or two, and shall never come
back again. Therefore, you can rely upon my promise."
"Implicitly," returned English Jim. "You must have had some reason I
cannot guess for what you did. That sounds like presumption, doesn't
it? But you can count upon my silence, madam."
"You are a good man." Millicent impulsively held out her hand to him.
"I have met very few so loyal or so charitable. May I wish you all
prosperity in your career?"
English Jim merely bowed as he went out, and Millicent's eyes grew dim
as she thought of her treachery to Geoffrey.
"There are good men in the world after all, though it has been my
misfortune to chiefly come across the bad," she admitted to herself.
Darkness had fallen when Thurston rode up to the ranch. He passed half
an hour alone with Millicent and went away without speaking to anyone
else. After he had gone Millicent said to Mrs. Savine:
"I start for England as soon as possible, and Mr. Thurston is going to
the railroad with me. I shall never return to Canada."
Pleading fatigue, she retired early, and for a time Mrs. Savine and
Helen sat silently in the glow of the great hearth upon which immense
logs were burning. There was no other light in the room, and each
flicker of the fire showed that Helen's face was more than usually
serious.
"Did you know that it was Mrs. Leslie Geoffrey should have married?"
asked Mrs. Savine at length.
"No," answered Helen, flushing. With feeling she added. "Perhaps I
ought to have guessed it. She leaves shortly, does the not? It will
be a relief. She must be a wicked woman, but please don't talk of her."
"That is just what I'm going to do," declared her aunt, gravely. "I
wouldn't guarantee that she is wholly good, but I blame her poison-mean
husband more than her. Anyway, she is better than you suppose her."
"I made no charge against her, and am only glad she is going," said
Helen Savine. Mrs. Savine smiled shrewdly.
"Well, I am going to show you there is nothing in that charge. Not
quite logical, is it, but sit still there and listen to me."
Helen listened, at first very much against her will, presently she grew
half-convinced, and at last wholly so. She blushed crimson as she said:
"May I be forgiven for thinking evil--but such things do happen, and
though I several times made myself believe, even against, the evidence
of my eyes, that I was wrong, appearances were horribly against her. I
am tired and will say good-night, auntie."
"Not yet," interposed Mrs. Savine, laying a detaining grasp upon her.
"Sit still, my dear, I'm only beginning. Appearances don't always
count for much. Now, there's Mrs. Christopher who started in to copy
my elixir. Oh, yes, it was like it in smell and color, but she nearly
killed poor Christopher with it."
"She said it cured him completely," commented Helen, hoping to effect a
diversion; but Mrs. Savine would not be put off.
"We won't argue about that, though there'll be a coroner called in the
next time she makes a foolish experiment. Now I'm going to give my
husband's confidences away. Hardly fair to Tom, but I'll do it,
because it seems necessary, and the last time I didn't go quite far
enough. To begin with. Did you know the opposition wanted to buy
Geoffrey over, paying him two dollars for every one he could have made
out of your father?"
"No," answered Helen, starting. "It was very loyal of him to refuse.
Why did he do so?"
Mrs. Savine smiled good-humoredly. "I guess you think that's due to
your dignity, but you don't fool me. Look into your mirror, Helen, if
you really want to know. Did you hear that he put every dollar he'd
made in Canada into the scheme? Of course you didn't; he made Tom
promise he would never tell you. Besides--but I forgot, I must not
mention that."
"Please spare me any more, auntie," pleaded Helen, who was overcome by
a sudden realization of her own injustice and absolute selfishness.
"No mercy this time," was the answer, given almost genially. "Like the
elixir which doesn't taste pleasant, it's good for you. You didn't
know, either, for the same reason, that not long ago Tom was badly
scared for fear he'd have to let the whole thing go for lack of money.
It would have been the end of Julius Savine if he had been forced to
give up this great enterprise."
"I never thought things were so bad, but how does it concern Mr.
Thurston?" Helen questioned her aunt in a voice that was trembling.
"Geoffrey straightened out all the financial affairs in just this way.
A relative in England left an estate to be divided between him and Mrs.
Leslie. There was enough to keep him safe for life, if he'd let it lie
just where it was, but he didn't. No, he sold out all that would have
earned him a life income for any price he could, and turned over every
cent of it to help your father. Now I've about got through, but I've
one question to ask you. Would the man who did all that--you can see
why--be likely to fool with another man's wife, even if it was the
handsome Mrs. Leslie?"
"No," said Helen, whose cheeks, which had grown pallid, flushed like a
blush rose. "I am glad you told me, auntie, but I feel I shall never
have the courage to look that man in the face again."
Mrs. Savine smiled, though her eyes glistened in the firelight as she
laid a thin hand on one of Helen's, which felt burning hot as the
fingers quivered within her grasp.
"You will, or that will hurt him more than all," she replied. "It
wasn't easy to tell you this, but I've seen too many lives ruined for
the want of a little common-sense talking--and I figure Jacob wouldn't
come near beating Geoffrey Thurston."
Helen rose abruptly. "Auntie, you will see to father--he has been
better lately--for just a little while, will not you?" she asked.
"Mrs. Crighton has invited me so often to visit her, and I really need
a change. This valley has grown oppressive, and I must have time to
think."
"Yes," assented Mrs. Savine. "But you must stand by your promise to
fire the final shot."
The door closed, and Mrs. Savine, removing her spectacles, wiped both
them and her eyes as she remarked: "I hope the Almighty will forgive a
meddlesome old woman for interfering, knowing she means well."