Hawtrey swung the whip when they reached the top, and the team plunged furiously down the slope. He straightened himself in his seat with both hands on the reins, and Agatha held her breath when she felt the light vehicle tilt as the wheels on one side sank deep in a rut. Something seemed to crack, and she saw the off horse stumble and plunge. The other horse flung its head up, Hawtrey shouted something, and there was a great smashing and snapping of undergrowth and fallen branches as they drove in among the birches. The team stopped, and Hawtrey, who sprang down, floundered noisily among the undergrowth, while another thud of hoofs and rattle of wheels grew louder behind them up the trail. In a minute or two Hawtrey came back and lifted Agatha down.

"It's the trace broken. I had to make the holes with my knife, and the string's torn through," he explained. "Voltigeur got it round his feet, and, as usual, tried to bolt. We'll make the others pull up and take you in."

They went back to the trail together, and reached it just as Hastings reined in his team. Hastings got down and walked back with Hawtrey to the stalled wagon. It was a minute or two before they reappeared again, and Mrs. Hastings, who had alighted, drew Hawtrey aside.

"I almost think it would be better if you didn't come any further to-night," she said.

"Why?" Gregory asked sharply.

"I can't help thinking that Agatha would prefer it. For one thing, she's rather jaded, and wants quiet."

"You feel sure of that?"

There was something in the man's voice which suggested that he was not quite satisfied, and Mrs. Hastings was silent a moment.

"It's good advice, Gregory," she said. "She'll be better able to face the situation after a night's rest."

"Does it require much facing?" Hawtrey asked dryly.

Mrs. Hastings turned from him with a sign of impatience. "Of course it does. Anyway, if you're wise you'll do what I suggest, and ask no more questions."

Then she got into the wagon, and Hawtrey stood still beside the trail, feeling unusually thoughtful as they drove away.

CHAPTER XI

AGATHA'S DECISION

It was with an expectancy which was toned down by misgivings that Hawtrey drove over to the homestead where Agatha was staying the next afternoon. The misgivings were not unnatural, for he had been chilled by the girl's reception of him on the previous day, and her manner afterwards had, he felt, left something to be desired. Indeed, when she drove away with Mrs. Hastings, he had considered himself an injured man.

His efforts to mend the harness, and extricate the wagon in the dark, which occupied him for an hour, had helped partly to drive the matter from his mind, and when he reached his homestead rather late that night he went to sleep, and slept soundly until sunrise. Hawtrey was a man who never brooded over his troubles beforehand, and this was one reason why he did not always cope with them successfully when they could no longer be avoided.

When he had eaten his breakfast, however, he became sensible of a certain pique against both Mrs. Hastings and Agatha. In planning for the day he was forced to remember that he had no hired man, and that there was a good deal to be done. He decided that it might be well to wait until the afternoon before he called on Agatha, and for several hours he drove his team through the crackling stubble. His doubts and irritation grew weaker as he worked, and when, later, he drove into sight of the Hastings homestead, his buoyant temperament was beginning to rea.s.sert itself. Clear sunshine streamed down upon the prairie out of a vault of cloudless blue, and he felt that any faint shadow that might have arisen between him and the girl could be readily swept away. He was a little less sure of this when he saw Agatha, who sat near an open window, in a scantily furnished match-boarded room. She had not slept at all. Her eyes were heavy, but there was a look of resolution in them which seemed out of place just then, and it struck him that she had lost the freshness which had been her distinguishing charm in England.

She rose when he came in, and then, to his astonishment, drew back a pace or two when he moved impulsively towards her.

"No," she said, with a hand raised restrainingly, "you must hear what I have to say, and try to bear with me. It is a little difficult, Gregory, but it must be said at once."

Gregory stood still, gazing at her with consternation in his face, and for a moment she looked steadily at him. It was a painful moment, for she was gifted with a clearness of vision which she almost longed to be delivered from. She saw that the impression which had brought her a vague sense of dismay on the previous afternoon was wrong. The trouble was that he had not changed at all. He was what he had always been, and she had merely deceived herself when she had permitted her girlish fancy to endow him with qualities and graces which he had never possessed.

There was, however, no doubt that she had still a duty toward him.

He spoke first with a trace of hardness in his voice.

"Then," he rejoined, "won't you sit down? This is naturally a little--embarra.s.sing--but I'll try to listen."

Agatha sank into a seat by the open window, for she felt physically worn out, and before her there was a task from which she shrank.

"Gregory," she began, "I feel that we have come near making what might prove to be a horrible mistake."

"We?" repeated Hawtrey, while the blood rose into his weather-darkened face. "That means both of us."

"Yes," a.s.serted Agatha, with a steadiness that cost her an effort.

Hawtrey went a step nearer to her. "Do you want me to admit that I've made a mistake."

"Are you quite sure you haven't?"

She flung the question at him sharply with tense apprehension, for, after all, if Gregory was sure of himself, there was only one course open to her. He leaned upon the table, gazing at her, and as he studied her face his indignation melted, and doubts crept into his mind.

She looked weary, and grave, almost haggard, and it was a fresh, light-hearted girl with whom he had fallen in love in England. The mark of the last two years of struggle was plain on her. He tried to realize what he had looked for when he had asked her to marry him, and could not get a clear conception of his vision. In the back of his mind was a half-formulated idea that he had dreamed of a cheerful companion, somebody to amuse him. She scarcely seemed likely to be entertaining now.

Gregory was not a man who could face a crisis collectedly, and his thoughts became confused until one idea emerged from them. He had pledged himself to her, and the fact laid a certain obligation upon him.

It was his part to overrule any fancies she might be disposed to indulge in.

"Well," he said stoutly, "I'm not going to admit anything of that kind.

The journey has been too much for you. You haven't got over it yet." He lowered his voice, and his face softened. "Aggy, dear, I've waited four years for you."

His words stirred her, for they were certainly true, and his gentleness had also its effect. The situation was becoming more and more difficult, since it seemed impossible to make him understand that he would in all probability speedily tire of her. To make it clear that she could never be satisfied with him was a thing from which she shrank.

"How have you pa.s.sed those four years?" she asked, to gain time.

For a moment his conscience smote him. He remembered the trips to Winnipeg, and the dances to which he had escorted Sally Creighton. It was, however, evident that Agatha could have heard nothing of Sally.

"I spent them in hard work. I wanted to make the place comfortable for you," he answered. "It is true"--and he added this with a twinge of uneasiness, as he remembered that his neighbors had done much more with less incentive--"that it's still very far from what I would like, but things have been against me."

The speech had a far stronger effect than he could have expected, for Agatha remembered Wyllard's description of what the prairie farmer had to face. Those four years of determined effort and patient endurance, as she pictured them, counted heavily against her in the man's favor. It flashed upon her that, after all, there might have been some warrant for the view that she had held of Gregory's character when he had fallen in love with her. He was younger then. There must have been latent possibilities in him, but the years of toil had killed them and hardened him. It was for her sake he had made the struggle, and now it seemed unthinkable that she should renounce him because he came to her with the dust and stain of it upon him. For all that, she was possessed with a feeling that she would involve them both in disaster if she yielded.

Something warned her that she must stand firm.

"Gregory," she said, "I seem to know that we should both be sorry afterwards if I kept my promise."

Hawtrey straightened himself with a smile that she recognized. She had liked him for it once, for it had then suggested the joyous courage of untainted youth. Now, however, it struck her as merely hinting at empty, complacent a.s.surance. She hated herself for the fancy, but it would not be driven away.

"Well," he replied, "I'm quite willing to face that hazard. I suppose this diffidence is only natural, Aggy, but it's a little hard on me."

"No," replied the girl with emphasis, "it's horribly unnatural, and that's why I'm afraid. I should have come to you gladly, without a misgiving, feeling that nothing could hurt me if I was with you. I wanted to do that, Gregory--I meant to--but I can't." Then her voice fell to a tone that had vibrant regret in it. "You should have made sure--you should have married me when you last came home."

"But I'd nowhere to take you. The farm was only half-broken prairie, the homestead almost unhabitable."

Agatha winced at this. It was, no doubt, true, but it seemed horribly petty and commonplace. His comprehension stopped at such details as these, and he had given her no credit for the courage which would have made light of bodily discomfort.

"Do you think that would have mattered? We were both very young then, and we could have faced our troubles and grown up together. Now we're not the same. You let me grow up alone."

Hawtrey shrugged his shoulders. "I haven't changed," he told her as she looked at him with deep-seeing eyes.

He contented himself with that, and Agatha grew more resolute. There was not a spark of imagination in him, scarcely even a spark of the pa.s.sion which, if it had been strong enough, might have swept her away in spite of her shrinking. He was a man of comely presence, whimsical, and quick, as she remembered, at light badinage, but when there was a crisis to be grappled with he somehow failed. His graces were on the surface. There was no depth in him.