Arthur Delaine was strolling and smoking on the broad wooden balcony,
which in the rear of the hotel at Banff overlooks a wide scene of alp
and water. The splendid Bow River comes swirling past the hotel, on its
rush from the high mountains to the plains of Saskatchewan. Craggy
mountains drop almost to the river's edge on one side; on the other,
pine woods mask the railway and the hills; while in the distance shine
the snow-peaks of the Rockies. It is the gateway of the mountains, fair
and widely spaced, as becomes their dignity.
Delaine, however, was not observing the scenery. He was entirely
absorbed by reflection on his own affairs. The party had now been
stationary for three or four days at Banff, enjoying the comforts of
hotel life. The travelling companion on whom Delaine had not calculated
in joining Lady Merton and her brother--Mr. George Anderson--had taken
his leave, temporarily, at Calgary. In thirty-six hours, however, he had
reappeared. It seemed that the construction work in which he was
engaged in the C---- valley did not urgently require his presence; that
his position towards the railway, with which he was about to sever his
official connection, was one of great freedom and influence, owing, no
doubt, to the services he had been able to render it the year before. He
was, in fact, master of his time, and meant to spend it apparently in
making Lady Merton's tour agreeable.
For himself, Delaine could only feel that the advent of this stranger
had spoilt the whole situation. It seemed now as though Elizabeth and
her brother could not get on without him. As he leant over the railing
of the balcony, Delaine could see far below, in the wood, the flutter of
a white dress. It belonged to Lady Merton, and the man beside her was
George Anderson. He had been arranging their walks and expeditions for
the last four days, and was now about to accompany the English
travellers on a special journey with a special engine through the
Kicking Horse Pass and back, a pleasure suggested by the kindness of the
railway authorities.
It was true that he had at one time been actively engaged on the
important engineering work now in progress in the pass; and Lady Merton
could not, therefore, have found a better showman. But why any showman
at all? What did she know about this man who had sprung so rapidly into
intimacy with herself and her brother? Yet Delaine could not honestly
accuse him of presuming on a chance acquaintance, since it was not to be
denied that it was Philip Gaddesden himself, who had taken an invalid's
capricious liking to the tall, fair-haired fellow, and had urgently
requested--almost forced him to come back to them.
Delaine was not a little bruised in spirit, and beginning to be angry.
During the solitary day he had been alone with them Elizabeth had been
kindness and complaisance itself. But instead of that closer
acquaintance, that opportunity for a gradual and delightful courtship on
which he had reckoned, when the restraint of watching eyes and
neighbourly tongues should be removed, he was conscious that he had
never been so remote from her during the preceding winter at home, as he
was now that he had journeyed six thousand miles simply and solely on
the chance of proposing to her. He could not understand how anything so
disastrous, and apparently so final, could have happened to him in one
short week! Lady Merton--he saw quite plainly--did not mean him to
propose to her, if she could possibly avoid it. She kept Philip with
her, and gave no opportunities. And always, as before, she was possessed
and bewitched by Canada! Moreover, the Chief Justice and the French
Canadian, Mariette, had turned up at the hotel two days before, on their
way to Vancouver. Elizabeth had been sitting, figuratively, at the feet
of both of them ever since; and both had accepted an invitation to join
in the Kicking Horse party, and were delaying their journey West
accordingly.
Instead of solitude, therefore, Delaine was aware of a most troublesome
amount of society. Aware also, deep down, that some test he resented but
could not escape had been applied to him on this journey, by
fortune--and Elizabeth!--and that he was not standing it well. And the
worst of it was that as his discouragement in the matter of Lady Merton
increased, so also did his distaste for this raw, new country, without
associations, without art, without antiquities, in which he should
never, never have chosen to spend one of his summers of this short life,
but for the charms of Elizabeth! And the more boredom he was conscious
of, the less congenial and sympathetic, naturally, did he become as a
companion for Lady Merton. Of this he was dismally aware. Well! he
hoped, bitterly, that she knew what she was about, and could take care
of herself. This man she had made friends with was good-looking and, by
his record, possessed ability. He had fairly gentlemanly manners, also;
though, in Delaine's opinion, he was too self-confident on his own
account, and too boastful on Canada's, But he was a man of humble
origin, son of a farmer who seemed, by the way, to be dead; and
grandson, so Delaine had heard him say, through his mother, of one of
the Selkirk settlers of 1812--no doubt of some Scotch gillie or
shepherd. Such a person, in England, would have no claim whatever to the
intimate society of Elizabeth Merton. Yet here she was alone, really
without protection--for what use was this young, scatter-brained
brother?--herself only twenty-seven, and so charming? so much prettier
than she had ever seemed to be at home. It was a dangerous situation--a
situation to which she ought not to have been exposed. Delaine had
always believed her sensitive and fastidious; and in his belief all
women should be sensitive and fastidious, especially as to who are, and
who are not, their social equals. But it was clear he had not quite
understood her. And this man whom they had picked up was undoubtedly
handsome, strong and masterful, of the kind that the natural woman
admires. But then he--Delaine--had never thought of Elizabeth Merton as
the natural woman. There lay the disappointment.
What was his own course to be? He believed himself defeated, but to
show any angry consciousness of it would be to make life very
uncomfortable in future, seeing that he and the Gaddesdens were
inevitably neighbours and old friends. After all, he had not committed
himself beyond repair. Why not resume the friendly relation which had
meant so much to him before other ideas had entered in? Ah! it was no
longer easy. The distress of which he was conscious had some deep roots.
He must marry--the estate demanded it. But his temperament was
invincibly cautious; his mind moved slowly. How was he to begin upon any
fresh quest? His quiet pursuit of Elizabeth had come about naturally and
by degrees. Propinquity had done it. And now that his hopes were dashed,
he could not imagine how he was to find any other chance; for, as a
rule, he was timid and hesitating with women. As he hung, in his
depression, over the river, this man of forty envisaged--suddenly and
not so far away--old age and loneliness. A keen and peevish resentment
took possession of him.
Lady Merton and Anderson began to ascend a long flight of steps leading
from the garden path below to the balcony where Delaine stood. Elizabeth
waved to him with smiles, and he must perforce watch her as she mounted
side by side with the fair-haired Canadian.
"Oh! such delightful plans!" she said, as she sank out of breath into a
seat. "We have ordered the engine for two o'clock. Please observe, Mr.
Arthur. Never again in this mortal life shall I be able to 'order' an
engine for two o'clock!--and one of these C.P.R. engines, too, great
splendid fellows! We go down the pass, and take tea at Field; and come
up the pass again this evening, to dine and sleep at Laggan. As we
descend, the engine goes in front to hold us back; and when we ascend,
it goes behind to push us up; and I understand that the hill is even
steeper"--she bent forward, laughing, to Delaine, appealing to their
common North Country recollections--"than the Shap incline!"
"Too steep, I gather," said Delaine, "to be altogether safe." His tone
was sharp. He stood with his back to the view, looking from Elizabeth to
her companion.
Anderson turned.
"As we manage it, it is perfectly safe! But it costs us too much to make
it safe. That's the reason for the new bit of line."
Elizabeth turned away uncomfortably, conscious again, as she had often
been before, of the jarring between the two men.
At two o'clock the car and the engine were ready, and Yerkes received
them at the station beaming with smiles. According to him, the privilege
allowed them was all his doing, and he was exceedingly jealous of any
claim of Anderson's in the matter.
"You come to _me_, my lady, if you want anything. Last year I ran a
Russian princess through--official. 'You take care of the Grand Duchess,
Yerkes,' they says to me at Montreal; for they know there isn't anybody
on the line they can trust with a lady as they can me. Of course, I
couldn't help her faintin' at the high bridges, going up Rogers Pass;
that wasn't none of my fault!"
"Faint--at bridges!" said Elizabeth with scorn. "I never heard of
anybody doing such a thing, Yerkes."
"Ah! you wait till you see 'em, my lady," said Yerkes, grinning.
The day was radiant, and even Philip, as they started from Banff
station, was in a Canadian mood. So far he had been quite cheerful and
good-tempered, though not, to Elizabeth's anxious eye, much more robust
yet than when they had left England. He smoked far too much, and
Elizabeth wished devoutly that Yerkes would not supply him so liberally
with whisky and champagne. But Philip was not easily controlled. The
very decided fancy, however, which he had lately taken for George
Anderson had enabled Elizabeth, in one or two instances, to manage him
more effectively. The night they arrived at Calgary, the lad had had a
wild desire to go off on a moonlight drive across the prairies to a
ranch worked by an old Cambridge friend of his. The night was cold, and
he was evidently tired by the long journey from Winnipeg. Elizabeth was
in despair, but could not move him at all. Then Anderson had intervened;
had found somehow and somewhere a trapper just in from the mountains
with a wonderful "catch" of fox and marten; and in the amusement of
turning over a bundle of magnificent furs, and of buying something
straight from the hunter for his mother, the youth had forgotten his
waywardness. Behind his back, Elizabeth had warmly thanked her
lieutenant.
"He only wanted a little distraction," Anderson had said, with a shy
smile, as though he both liked and disliked her thanks. And then,
impulsively, she had told him a good deal about Philip and his illness,
and their mother, and the old house in Cumberland. She, of all persons,
to be so communicative about the family affairs to a stranger! Was it
that two days in a private car in Canada went as far as a month's
acquaintance elsewhere?
Another passenger had been introduced to Lady Merton by Anderson, an
hour before the departure of the car, and had made such a pleasant
impression on her that he also had been asked to join the party, and had
very gladly consented. This was the American, Mr. Val Morton, now the
official receiver, so Elizabeth understood, of a great railway system in
the middle west of the United States. The railway had been handed over
to him in a bankrupt condition. His energy and probity were engaged in
pulling it through. More connections between it and the Albertan
railways were required; and he was in Canada looking round and
negotiating. He was already known to the Chief Justice and Mariette, and
Elizabeth fell quickly in love with his white hair, his black eyes, his
rapier-like slenderness and keenness, and that pleasant mingling in
him--so common in the men of his race--of the dry shrewdness of the
financier with a kind of headlong courtesy to women.
On sped the car through the gate of the Rockies. The mountains grew
deeper, the snows deeper against the blue, the air more dazzling, the
forests closer, breathing balm into the sunshine.
Suddenly the car slackened and stopped. No sign of a station. Only a
rustic archway, on which was written "The Great Divide," and beneath the
archway two small brooklets issuing, one flowing to the right, the other
to the left.
They all left the car and stood round the tiny streams. They were on the
watershed. The water in the one streamlet flowed to the Atlantic, that
in its fellow to the Pacific.
Eternal parable of small beginnings and vast fates! But in this setting
of untrodden mountains, and beside this railway which now for a few
short years had been running its parlour and dining cars, its telegraphs
and electric lights and hotels, a winding thread of life and
civilisation, through the lonely and savage splendours of snow-peak and
rock, transforming day by day the destinies of Canada--the parable
became a truth, proved upon the pulses of men.
The party sat down on the grass beside the bright, rippling water, and
Yerkes brought them coffee. While they were taking it, the two
engine-drivers descended from the cab of the engine and began to gather
a few flowers and twigs from spring bushes that grew near. They put them
together and offered them to Lady Merton. She, going to speak to them,
found that they were English and North Country.
"Philip!--Mr. Arthur!--they come from our side of Carlisle!"
Philip looked up with a careless nod and smile. Delaine rose and went to
join her. A lively conversation sprang up between her and the two men.
They were, it seemed, a stalwart pair of friends, kinsmen indeed, who
generally worked together, and were now entrusted with some of the most
important work on the most difficult sections of the line. But they were
not going to spend all their days on the line--not they! Like everybody
in the West, they had their eyes on the land. Upon a particular district
of it, moreover, in Northern Alberta, not yet surveyed or settled. But
they were watching it, and as soon as the "steel gang" of a projected
railway came within measurable distance they meant to claim their
sections and work their land together.
When the conversation came to an end and Elizabeth, who with her
companions had been strolling along the line a little in front of the
train, turned back towards her party, Delaine looked down upon her, at
once anxious to strike the right note, and moodily despondent of
doing it.
"Evidently, two very good fellows!" he said in his rich, ponderous
voice. "You gave them a great pleasure by going to talk to them."
"I?" cried Elizabeth. "They are a perfect pair of gentlemen!--and it is
very kind of them to drive us!"
Delaine laughed uneasily.
"The gradations here are bewildering--or rather the absence of
gradations."
"One gets down to the real thing," said Elizabeth, rather hotly.
Delaine laughed again, with a touch of bitterness.
"The real thing? What kind of reality? There are all sorts."
Elizabeth was suddenly conscious of a soreness in his tone. She tried to
walk warily.
"I was only thinking," she protested, "of the chances a man gets in this
country of showing what is in him."
"Remember, too," said Delaine, with spirit, "the chances that he
misses!"
"The chances that belong only to the old countries? I am rather bored
with them!" said Elizabeth flippantly.
Delaine forced a smile.
"Poor Old World! I wonder if you will ever be fair to it again, or--or
to the people bound up with it!"
She looked at him, a little discomposed, and said, smiling:
"Wait till you meet me next in Rome!"
"Shall I ever meet you again in Rome?" he replied, under his breath, as
though involuntarily.
As he spoke he made a determined pause, a stone's throw from the
rippling stream that marks the watershed; and Elizabeth must needs pause
with him. Beyond the stream, Philip sat lounging among rugs and cushions
brought from the car, Anderson and the American beside him. Anderson's
fair, uncovered head and broad shoulders were strongly thrown out
against the glistening snows of the background. Upon the three typical
figures--the frail English boy--the Canadian--the spare New
Yorker--there shone an indescribable brilliance of light. The energy of
the mountain sunshine and the mountain air seemed to throb and quiver
through the persons talking--through Anderson's face, and his eyes fixed
upon Elizabeth--through the sunlit water--the sparkling grasses--the
shimmering spectacle of mountain and summer cloud that begirt them.
"Dear Mr. Arthur, of course we shall meet again in Rome!" said
Elizabeth, rosy, and not knowing in truth what to say. "This place has
turned my head a little!"--she looked round her, raising her hand to the
spectacle as though in pretty appeal to him to share her own
exhilaration--"but it will be all over so soon--and you _know_ I don't
forget old friends--or old pleasures."
Her voice wavered a little. He looked at her, with parted lips, and a
rather hostile, heated expression; then drew back, alarmed at his
own temerity.
"Of course I know it! You must forgive a bookworm his grumble. Shall I
help you over the stream?"
But she stepped across the tiny streamlet without giving him her hand.
As they later rejoined the party, Morton, the Chief Justice, and
Mariette returned from a saunter in the course of which they too had
been chatting to the engine-drivers.
"I know the part of the country those men want," the American was
saying. "I was all over Alberta last fall--part of it in a motor car. We
jumped about those stubble-fields in a way to make a leopard jealous!
Every bone in my body was sore for weeks afterwards. But it was worth
while. That's a country!"--he threw up his hands. "I was at Edmonton on
the day when the last Government lands, the odd numbers, were thrown
open. I saw the siege of the land offices, the rush of the new
population. Ah, well, of course, we're used to such scenes in the
States. There's a great trek going on now in our own Southwest. But
when that's over, our free land is done. Canada will have the handling
of the last batch on this planet."
"If Canada by that time is not America," said Mariette, drily.
The American digested the remark.
"Well," he said, at last, with a smile, "if I were a Canadian, perhaps I
should be a bit nervous."
Thereupon, Mariette with great animation developed his theme of the
"American invasion." Winnipeg was one danger spot, British Columbia
another. The "peaceful penetration," both of men and capital, was going
on so rapidly that a movement for annexation, were it once started in
certain districts of Canada, might be irresistible. The harsh and
powerful face of the speaker became transfigured; one divined in him
some hidden motive which was driving him to contest and belittle the
main currents and sympathies about him. He spoke as a prophet, but the
faith which envenomed the prophecy lay far out of sight.
Anderson took it quietly. The Chief Justice smiled.
"It might have been," he said, "it might have been! This railroad has
made the difference." He stretched out his hand towards the line and
the pass. "Twenty years ago, I came over this ground with the first
party that ever pushed through Rogers Pass and down the Illecillewaet
Valley to the Pacific. We camped just about here for the night. And in
the evening I was sitting by myself on the slopes of that mountain
opposite"--he raised his hand--"looking at the railway camps below me,
and the first rough line that had been cut through the forests. And I
thought of the day when the trains would be going backwards and
forwards, and these nameless valleys and peaks would become the
playground of Canada and America. But what I didn't see was the shade of
England looking on!--England, whose greater destiny was being decided by
those gangs of workmen below me, and the thousands of workmen behind me,
busy night and day in bridging the gap between east and west. Traffic
from north and south"--he turned towards the American--"that meant, for
_your_ Northwest, fusion with _our_ Northwest; traffic from east to
west--that meant England, and the English Sisterhood of States! And
that, for the moment, I didn't see."
"Shall I quote you something I found in an Edmonton paper the other
day?" said Anderson, raising his head from where he lay, looking down
into the grass. And with his smiling, intent gaze fixed on the
American, he recited:
Land of the sweeping eagle, your goal is not our goal!
For the ages have taught that the North and the South breed
difference of soul.
We toiled for years in the snow and the night, because we
believed in the spring,
And the mother who cheered us first, shall be first at the
banquetting!
The grey old mother, the dear old mother, who taught us the
note we sing!
The American laughed.
"A bit raw, like some of your prairie towns; but it hits the nail. I
dare say we have missed our bargain. What matter! Our own chunk is as
big as we can chew."
There was a moment's silence. Elizabeth's eyes were shining; even Philip
sat open-mouthed and dumb, staring at Anderson.
In the background Delaine waited, grudgingly expectant, for the turn of
Elizabeth's head, and the spark of consciousness passing between the two
faces which he had learnt to watch. It came--a flash of some high
sympathy--involuntary, lasting but a moment. Then Mariette threw out:
"And in the end, what are you going to make of it? A replica of Europe,
or America?--a money-grubbing civilisation with no faith but the
dollar? If so, we shall have had the great chance of history--and
lost it!"
"We shan't lose it," said Anderson, "unless the gods mock us."
"Why not?" said Mariette sombrely. "Nations have gone mad before now."
"Ah!--prophesy, prophesy!" said the Chief Justice sadly. "All very well
for you young men, but for us, who are passing away! Here we are at the
birth. Shall we never, in any state of being, know the end? I have never
felt so bitterly as I do now the limitations of our knowledge and
our life."
No one answered him. But Elizabeth looking up saw the aspect of
Mariette--the aspect of a thinker and a mystic--slowly relax. Its
harshness became serenity, its bitterness peace. And with her quick
feeling she guessed that the lament of the Chief Justice had only
awakened in the religious mind the typical religious cry, "_Thou_, Lord,
art the Eternal, and Thy years shall not fail."
At Field, where a most friendly inn shelters under the great shoulders
of Mount Stephen, they left the car a while, took tea in the hotel, and
wandered through the woods below it. All the afternoon, Elizabeth had
shown a most delicate and friendly consideration for Delaine. She had
turned the conversation often in his direction and on his subjects, had
placed him by her side at tea, and in general had more than done her
duty by him. To no purpose. Delaine saw himself as the condemned man to
whom indulgences are granted before execution. She would probably have
done none of these things if there had been any real chance for him.
But in the walk after tea, Anderson and Lady Merton drifted together.
There had been so far a curious effort on both their parts to avoid each
other's company. But now the Chief Justice and Delaine had foregathered;
Philip was lounging and smoking on the balcony of the hotel with a
visitor there, an old Etonian fishing and climbing in the Rockies for
health, whom they had chanced upon at tea. Mariette, after one glance at
the company, especially at Elizabeth and Anderson, had turned aside into
the woods by himself.
They crossed the river and strolled up the road to Emerald Lake. Over
the superb valley to their left hung the great snowy mass, glistening
and sunlit, of Mount Stephen; far to the West the jagged peaks of the
Van Home range shot up into the golden air; on the flat beside the river
vivid patches of some crimson flower, new to Elizabeth's eyes, caught
the sloping light; and the voice of a swollen river pursued them.
They began to talk, this time of England. Anderson asked many questions
as to English politics and personalities. And she, to please him,
chattered of great people and events, of scenes and leaders in
Parliament, of diplomats and royalties; all the gossip of the moment, in
fact, fluttering round the principal figures of English and European
politics. It was the talk most natural to her; the talk of the world she
knew best; and as Elizabeth was full of shrewdness and natural salt,
without a trace of malice, no more at least than a woman should have--to
borrow the saying about Wilkes and his squint--her chatter was generally
in request, and she knew it.
But Anderson, though he had led up to it, did not apparently enjoy it;
on the contrary, she felt him gradually withdrawing and cooling,
becoming a little dry and caustic, even satirical, as on the first
afternoon of their acquaintance. So that after a while her gossip
flagged; since the game wants two to play it. Then Anderson walked on
with a furrowed brow, and raised colour; and she could not imagine what
had been done or said to annoy him.
She could only try to lead him back to Canada. But she got little or no
response.
"Our politics must seem to you splashes in a water-butt," he said
impatiently, "after London and Europe."
"A pretty big water-butt!"
"Size makes no difference." Elizabeth's lips twitched as she remembered
Arthur Delaine's similar protests; but she kept her countenance, and
merely worked the harder to pull her companion out of this odd pit of
ill-humour into which he had fallen. And in the end she succeeded; he
repented, and let her manage him as she would. And whether it was the
influence of this hidden action and reaction between their minds, or of
the perfumed June day breathing on them from the pines, or of the giant
splendour of Mount Burgess, rising sheer in front of them out of the
dark avenue of the forest, cannot be told; but, at least, they became
more intimate than they had yet been, more deeply interesting each to
the other. In his thoughts and ideals she found increasing fascination;
her curiosity, her friendly and womanly curiosity, grew with
satisfaction. His view of life was often harsh or melancholy; but there
was never a false nor a mean note.
Yet before the walk was done he had startled her. As they turned back
towards Field, and were in the shadows of the pines, he said, with
abrupt decision:
"Will you forgive me if I say something?"
She looked up surprised.
"Don't let your brother drink so much champagne!"
The colour rushed into Elizabeth's face. She drew herself up, conscious
of sharp pain, but also of anger. A stranger, who had not yet known them
ten days! But she met an expression on his face, timid and yet
passionately resolved, which arrested her.
"I really don't know what you mean, Mr. Anderson!" she said proudly.
"I thought I had seen you anxious. I should be anxious if I were you,"
he went on hurriedly. "He has been ill, and is not quite master of
himself. That is always the critical moment. He is a charming
fellow--you must be devoted to him. For God's sake, don't let him ruin
himself body and soul!"
Elizabeth was dumbfounded. The tears rushed into her eyes, her voice
choked in her throat. She must, she would defend her brother. Then she
thought of the dinner of the night before, and the night before that--of
the wine bill at Winnipeg and Toronto. Her colour faded away; her heart
sank; but it still seemed to her an outrage that he should have dared to
speak of it. He spoke, however, before she could.
"Forgive me," he said, recovering his self-control. "I know it must
seem mere insolence on my part. But I can't help it--I can't look on at
such a thing, silently. May I explain? Please permit me! I told
you"--his voice changed--"my mother and sisters had been burnt to death.
I adored my mother. She was everything to me. She brought us up with
infinite courage, though she was a very frail woman. In those days a
farm in Manitoba was a much harder struggle than it is now. Yet she
never complained; she was always cheerful; always at work. But--my
father drank! It came upon him as a young man--after an illness. It got
worse as he grew older. Every bit of prosperity that came to us, he
drank away; he would have ruined us again and again, but for my mother.
And at last he murdered her--her and my poor sisters!"
Elizabeth made a sound of horror.
"Oh, there was no intention to murder," said Anderson bitterly. "He
merely sat up drinking one winter night with a couple of whisky bottles
beside him. Then in the morning he was awakened by the cold; the fire
had gone out. He stumbled out to get the can of coal-oil from the
stable, still dazed with drink, brought it in and poured some on the
wood. Some more wood was wanted. He went out to fetch it, leaving his
candle alight, a broken end in a rickety candlestick, on the floor
beside the coal-oil. When he got to the stable it was warm and
comfortable; he forgot what he had come for, fell down on a bundle of
straw, and went into a dead sleep. The candle must have fallen over into
the oil, the oil exploded, and in a few seconds the wooden house was in
flames. By the time I came rushing back from the slough where I had been
breaking the ice for water, the roof had already fallen in. My poor
mother and two of the children had evidently tried to escape by the
stairway and had perished there; the two others were burnt in
their beds."
"And your father?" murmured Elizabeth, unable to take her eyes from the
speaker.
"I woke him in the stable, and told him what had happened. Bit by bit I
got out of him what he'd done. And then I said to him, 'Now
choose!--either you go, or we. After the funeral, the boys and I have
done with you. You can't force us to go on living with you. We will kill
ourselves first. Either you stay here, and we go into Winnipeg; or you
can sell the stock, take the money, and go. We'll work the farm.' He
swore at me, but I told him he'd find we'd made up our minds. And a week
later, he disappeared. He had sold the stock, and left us the burnt
walls and the land."
"And you've never seen him since?"
"Never."
"You believe him dead?"
"I know that he died--in the first Yukon rush of ten years ago. I
tracked him there, shortly afterwards. He was probably killed in a
scuffle with some miners as drunken as himself."
There was a silence, which he broke very humbly.
"Do you forgive me? I know I am not sane on this point. I believe I have
spoilt your day."
She looked up, her eyes swimming in tears, and held out her hand.
"It's nothing, you know," she said, trying to smile--"in our case.
Philip is such a baby."
"I know; but look after him!" he said earnestly, as he grasped it.
The trees thinned, and voices approached. They emerged from the forest,
and found themselves hailed by the Chief Justice.
The journey up the pass was even more wonderful than the journey down.
Sunset lights lay on the forests, on the glorious lonely mountains, and
on the valley of the Yoho, roadless and houseless now, but soon to be as
famous through the world as Grindelwald or Chamounix. They dismounted
and explored the great camps of workmen in the pass; they watched the
boiling of the stream, which had carved the path of the railway; they
gathered white dogwood, and yellow snow-lilies, and red painter's-brush.
Elizabeth and Anderson hardly spoke to each other. She talked a great
deal with Delaine, and Mariette held a somewhat acid dispute with her on
modern French books--Loti, Anatole France, Zola--authors whom his
soul loathed.
But the day had forged a lasting bond between Anderson and Elizabeth,
and they knew it.
* * * * *
The night rose clear and cold, with stars shining on the snow. Delaine,
who with Anderson had found quarters in one of Laggan's handful of
houses, went out to stroll and smoke alone, before turning into bed. He
walked along the railway line towards Banff, in bitterness of soul,
debating with himself whether he could possibly leave the party at once.
When he was well out of sight of the station and the houses, he became
aware of a man persistently following him, and not without a hasty grip
on the stout stick he carried, he turned at last to confront him.
"What do you want with me? You seem to be following me."
"Are you Mr. Arthur Delaine?" said a thick voice.
"That is my name. What do you want?"
"And you be lodging to-night in the same house with Mr. George
Anderson?"
"I am. What's that to you?"
"Well, I want twenty minutes' talk with you," said the voice, after a
pause. The accent was Scotch. In the darkness Delaine dimly perceived an
old and bent man standing before him, who seemed to sway and totter as
he leant upon his stick.
"I cannot imagine, sir, why you should want anything of the kind." And
he turned to pursue his walk. The old man kept up with him, and
presently said something which brought Delaine to a sudden stop of
astonishment. He stood there listening for a few minutes, transfixed,
and finally, turning round, he allowed his strange companion to walk
slowly beside him back to Laggan.