The blood surged into the girl's face, and she looked up at him with open triumph in her eyes. It was her hour, and Sally, as it happened, was not afraid of anything.

"Oh!" she exclaimed; "you really want me?"

"Yes," said Hawtrey quietly; "I think I have wanted you for ever so long, though I did not know it until lately."

"Then," she said, "I'll do what I can, Gregory."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'WOULD YOU BE AFRAID TO SEE WHAT YOU COULD MAKE OF THE PLACE AND ME?'" (Page 242)]

Hawtrey bent his head and kissed her with a deference that he had not expected to feel, for there was something in the girl's simplicity and the completeness of her surrender which, though the thing seemed astonishing, laid a restraint on him. As he sat down on the arm of her chair with a hand upon her shoulder, he was more astonished still, for she quietly made it clear that she expected a good deal from him. For one thing, he realized that she meant him to take and to keep a foremost place among his neighbors, and, though Sally had not the gift of clear and imaginative expression, it became apparent that this was less for her own sake than his. She was, with somewhat crude forcefulness, trying to arouse a sense of responsibility in the man, to incite him to resolute action and wholesome restraint, and, as he remembered what he had hitherto thought of her, a salutary sense of confusion crept upon him.

She seemed to recognize it, for at length she glanced up at him sharply.

"What is it, Gregory? Why do you look at me like that?" she asked.

Hawtrey smiled in a perplexed fashion. Hitherto she had made her appeal through his senses to one side of his nature only. There was no doubt on that point, but now it seemed there were in her qualities he had never suspected. She had desired him as a husband, but it was becoming clear that she would not be content with the mere possession of him. Sally, it seemed, had wider ideas in her mind, and, though the idea seemed almost ludicrous, she wanted to be proud of him.

"My dear," he faltered, "I can't quite tell you--but you have made me heartily ashamed. I'm afraid it's a very rash thing you are going to do."

She looked at him with candid anxiety, and then appeared to dismiss the subject with a smile.

"There is so much I want to say, and it mayn't be so easy--afterwards,"

she said. "It's a pity the train starts so soon."

"We can get over that difficulty, anyway," said Hawtrey. "I'll come on as far as I can with you, and get back from one of the way stations by the Pacific express."

Sally made no objections, and drawing a little closer to him she talked on in a low voice.

CHAPTER XXII

A PAINFUL REVELATION

A sprinkle of snow was driving down the unpaved street before the biting wind, when Mrs. Hastings came out of a store in the settlement and handed Sproatly, who was waiting close by, several big packages.

"You can put them into the wagon, and tell Jake we'll want the team as soon as supper's over," she said. "We're going to stay with Mrs. Ormond to-night, and I don't want to get there too late."

Sproatly took the parcels, and Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha, who stood a pace or two behind her with Winifred.

"Now," she announced, "if there's nothing else you want to buy we'll go across to the hotel."

They were standing in a big comfortless room in the hotel when Sproatly rejoined them.

"This place is quite shivery," observed Mrs. Hastings. "They generally have the stove lighted in the little room along the corridor. Go and see, Jim."

Sproatly went out. It happened that he was wearing rubber boots, which make very little noise. He proceeded along the dark corridor, and then stopped abruptly when he had almost reached a partly-open door, for he could see into a lighted room. Hawtrey was sitting near the stove on the arm of Sally's chair.

Though he was not greatly surprised, Sproatly drew back a pace or two into the shadow, for it became evident that there were only two courses open to him. He could judiciously announce his presence by making the door rattle, and then go in and mention as casually as possible that Mrs. Hastings and Agatha were in the hotel. He felt that he ought to do it, but there was the difficulty that he could not warn Hawtrey without embarra.s.sing Sally. Sproatly hesitated in honest doubt as it became evident that the situation was a delicate one. He decided on the alternative. He would go back quietly, and keep Mrs. Hastings out of the room if it could be done.

"I think you would be just as comfortable where you are," he informed her when he joined the others.

"I'm rather doubtful," declared Mrs. Hastings. "Wasn't the stove lighted?"

"Yes," answered Sproatly, "I fancy it was."

"But I sent you to make sure."

"The fact is, I didn't go in," said Sproatly uneasily. "There's somebody in the room already."

"Any of the boys would go out if they knew we wanted it."

"Oh, yes," acquiesced Sproatly. "Still, you see, it's only a small room, and one of them has been smoking."

Mrs. Hastings flashed a keen glance at him, and then smiled in a manner he did not like. It suggested that while she yielded to his objections she had by no means abandoned the subject.

"Well," she said, "what shall we do until supper? This stove won't draw properly, and I don't feel inclined to sit shivering here."

Then Sproatly was seized by what proved to be a singularly unfortunate inspiration.

"It's really not snowing much, and we'll go down to the depot and watch the Atlantic express come in," he suggested. "It's one of the things everybody does."

This was, as a matter of fact, correct. There are not many amus.e.m.e.nts open to the inhabitants of the smaller settlements along the railroad track, and the arrival of the infrequent trains is a source of unflagging interest. Mrs. Hastings fell in with the suggestion, and Sproatly was congratulating himself upon his diplomacy, when Agatha stopped as they reached the door of the hotel.

"Oh," she said, "I've only brought one of my mittens."

"I'll go back for the other," responded Sproatly promptly.

"You don't know where I left it."

"Then I'll lend you one of mine. It will certainly go on," the man persisted.

Agatha objected to this, and Sproatly, who fancied that Mrs. Hastings was watching him, let her go, after which he and the others moved out into the street. Agatha ran back to the room they had left, and, finding the mitten, had reached the head of the stairway when she heard voices behind her in the corridor. She recognized them, and turned in sudden astonishment. Standing in the shadow she involuntarily waited. Not far away a stream of light from the door of the room shone out into the corridor. Next moment Hawtrey and Sally approached the door, and as the light fell upon them the blood surged into Agatha's face, for she remembered the embarra.s.sment in Sproatly's manner, and that he had done all he could to prevent her from going back for the mitten.

Hawtrey spoke to Sally, and there was no doubt whatever that he called her "My dear." Filled with burning indignation, Agatha stood still for a moment and they were almost upon her before she turned and fled precipitately down the stairway. She felt that this was horribly undignified, but she could not stay and face them. When she overtook the others she had recovered her outward composure, and they went on together toward the track. As yet she was conscious only of anger at Gregory's treachery. That feeling possessed her too completely for her to be conscious of anything else.

Cold as it was, there were a good many loungers in the station, and Sproatly, who spoke to one or two of them, led his party away from the little shed where they loitered, and walked briskly up and down beside the track until a speck of blinking light rose out of the white wilderness. The light grew rapidly larger, until they could make out a trail of smoke behind it, and the roar of wheels rose in a long crescendo. Then a bell commenced to toll, and the blaze of a big lamp beat into their faces as the great locomotive came clanking into the station.

The locomotive stopped, and the light from the long car windows fell upon the groups of watching fur-clad men, while here and there a shadowy object that showed black against it leaned out from a platform. There was, however, no sign of any pa.s.sengers for the train until at the last moment two figures appeared hurrying along. They drew nearer, and Agatha set her lips tight as she recognized them, for the light from a vestibule shone into Hawtrey's face as he half lifted Sally on to one of the platforms and sprang up after her. Then the bell tolled again, and the train slid slowly out of the station with its lights flashing upon the snow.

Agatha turned away abruptly and walked a little apart from the rest. The thing, she felt, admitted of only one explanation. Sproatly's diplomacy had had a most unfortunate result, and she was sensible of an intolerable disgust. She had kept faith with Gregory, at least as far as it was possible, and he had utterly humiliated her. The affront he had put upon her was almost unbearable.

In the meanwhile, Mrs. Hastings walked up to Sproatly, who, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, had drawn back judiciously into the shadow.

"Now," she said, "I understand. You, of course, antic.i.p.ated this."

"I didn't," declared Sproatly with a decision which carried conviction with it. "I certainly saw them at the hotel, but how could I imagine that they had anything of the kind in view?"