The man's tone was humble if his eyes were eager, and Helen, who was sensible of a tremor of emotion, leaned against the rails of the veranda. The winter sunlight shone full upon her, and either that or the cold breeze that she had met on the headland accounted for the color in her cheeks. She made a dainty picture in her fur cap and close-fitting jacket, whose rich fur tr.i.m.m.i.n.g set off the curves of a shapely figure. The man's longing must have shown itself in his eyes, for Helen suddenly turned her glance away from him. Again she felt a curious thrill, almost of pleasure, and wondered at it. If she had guessed his meaning correctly she would have felt merely sorry for him, and yet there was no mistaking an indefinite sense of satisfaction.

"Do you remember what I once told you at Graham's ranch?" he asked. "I was a needy adventurer then, and guilty of horrible presumption, but though the words came without my definite will I meant every one of them. I knew there could be only one woman in the world for me, and I solemnly determined to win her. It seemed madness--I was a poor, unknown man--but the thought of you drove me resistlessly on until at last the gulf between us has been narrowed, and may be narrower still.

That is, I have striven to lessen it in the one way I can--in all others without your help it must remain impa.s.sable. Heaven knows how far I am beneath you, and the daring hope has but one excuse--I love you, and shall always do so. Is what I hope for quite impossible?"

While Helen would have told herself ten minutes earlier that she almost disliked the pleader, she was conscious of a new emotion. She had regarded other suitors with something like contempt, but it was not so with Thurston. Even if he occasionally repelled her, it was impossible to despise him.

"I am sorry," she said slowly. "Sorry that you should have told me this, because I can only answer that it is impossible."

Geoffrey evinced no great surprise. His face became stern instead of expectant; his toil-hardened frame was more erect, as he answered with unusual gentleness:

"I have endeavored to prepare myself for your reply. How could I hope to win you--as it were for the asking--easily? Still, though I am painfully conscious of many possible reasons, may I venture to ask why it is impossible, Miss Savine?"

Helen answered: "I am sorry it is so--but why should I pain you? Can you not take my answer without the reasons?"

"No; not if you will give them," persisted Geoffrey. "I have grown accustomed to unpleasant things, and it is to be hoped there is truth in the belief that they are good for one. The truth from your lips would hurt me less. Will you not tell me?"

"I will try if you demand it." Helen, who could not help noticing how unflinchingly he had received what was really a needlessly cold rebuff, hoped she was lucid as she began:

"I have a respect for you, Mr. Thurston, but--how shall I express it?--also a shrinking. You--please remember, you insisted--seem so hard and overbearing, and while power is a desirable attribute in a man---- But will you force me to go on?"

"I beg you to go on," said Geoffrey, with a certain grimness.

"In spite of a popular fallacy, I could not esteem a--a husband I was afraid of. A man should be gentle, pitiful and considerate to all women. Without mutual forbearance there could be no true companionship--and----"

"You are right." Geoffrey's voice was humble without bitterness. "I have lived a hard life, and perhaps it has made me, compared with your standard, brutal. Still, I would ask again, are these all your reasons? Is the other difference between us too great--the distance dividing the man you gave the dollar to from the daughter of Julius Savine?"

"No," answered Helen. "That difference is, after all, imaginary. We do not think over here quite as you do in England, and if we did, are you not a Thurston of Crosbie? But please believe that I am sorry, and--you insisted on the explanation--forgive me if I have said too much. There is a long future before you--and men change their minds."

Geoffrey's face darkened, and Helen, who regretted the last hasty words which escaped her without reflection, watched him intently until he said:

"Musker must have told you about something in my life. But I was not inconstant though the fault was doubtless mine. That is a story which cannot be mentioned again, Miss Savine."

"I had never meant to refer to it," Helen apologized with some confusion, "but since you have mistaken me, I must add that another friend of yours--a lady--gave me a version that bore truth stamped upon the face of it. One could imagine that you would not take kindly to the fate others arranged for you. But how do you know you are not repeating the same mistake? The fancy which deceived you then may do the same again."

"How do I know?" Geoffrey's voice rang convincingly as he turned upon the questioner, stretched out an arm towards her, and then dropped it swiftly. "I know what love is now, because you have taught me.

Listen, Miss Savine, I am as the Almighty made me, a plain--and sometimes an ill-tempered man, who would gladly lay down his life to save you sorrow; but if what you say divides us is all there is, then, as long as you remain Helen Savine, I shall cling fast to my purpose and strive to prove myself worthy. Again, you were right--how could you be otherwise?--but I shall yet convince you that you need not shrink from me."

"It would be wiser to take a definite 'no' for answer," said Helen.

"Why should this fancy spoil your life for you?"

"You cannot take all hope from me," Geoffrey declared. "Would you suspect me of exaggerated sentiment, if I said my life has been yours for a long time and is yours now, for it is true. I will go back to the work that is best for me, merely adding that, if ever there is either trouble or adversity in which I can aid you--though G.o.d forbid, for your sake, that should ever be so--you have only to send for me."

"I can at least sincerely wish you success in your great undertaking."

Helen offered him her hand, and was conscious of a faint disappointment, when, barely touching it, he turned hurriedly away.

She watched him cross the lawn towards the stables, and then waited until a rapid thud of hoofs broke the silence of the woods.

"Gone, and I let him carry that hope away!" she said, still looking towards the forest with troubled eyes. "Yesterday I could never have done so, but yesterday he was gone, and now----"

Helen did not finish her sentence, but as the beat of hoofs died away, glanced at the hand which for a moment had rested in Geoffrey's. "What has happened to me, and is he learning quickly or growing strangely timid?" she asked herself.

Thurston almost rode over Julius Savine near the railroad depot, and reined in his horse to say:

"I have my answer, sir, but do not feel beaten yet. Some unholy luck insists that all my affairs must be mixed with my daily business, and, because of what was said in the canon, I must ask you, now of all times, to let me hold the option of that partnership or acceptance of the offer I made you until we vanquish the river."

He went off at a gallop as the cars rolled in, leaving Savine smiling dryly as he looked after him.

CHAPTER XIII

A TEST OF LOYALTY

It was during a brief respite from his task, which had been suspended, waiting the arrival of certain tools and material, that Thurston accompanied Savine and Helen to a semi-public gathering at the house of a man who was a power in the Mountain Province just outside Vancouver.

Politicians, land-speculators, railroad and shipping magnates were present with their wives and daughters, and most of them had a word for Savine or a glance of admiration for Helen.

Savine moved among guests chatting with the brilliancy which occasionally characterized him, and always puzzled Thurston.

Thurston was rarely troubled by petty jealousies, but the homage all men paid to Helen awoke an unpleasant apprehension within him. He did not know many of the men and women who laughed and talked in animated groups; and at length found himself seated alone in a quiet corner.

The ground floor of the rambling house consisted of various rooms, some of which opened with archways into one another. He could see into the one most crowded, where Helen formed the center of an admiring circle.

There was no doubt that Miss Savine owed much to the race from which she sprang on her mother's side. Dark beauty, grace of movement, and, when she chose to indulge in it, vivacious speech, all betokened a Latin extraction, while the slight haughtiness, which Thurston thought wonderfully became her, was the dowry of a line of autocratic landowners. That she was pleasant to look upon was proved by the convincing testimony of other men's admiration as well as by his own senses. Now, when the distance between them was in some respects diminishing, she seemed even further away from him. In her presence he felt himself a plain, unpolished man, and knew he would never shine in the light play of wit and satire which characterized the society for which she was fitted. He decided, also, that she had probably remained unmarried because she could find no one who came up to her standard, and feared that he himself would come very far beneath it. It appeared doubtful that he could ever acquire the gentler virtues Helen had described. Nevertheless, his face grew set as he determined that he could prove his loyalty in the manner that best suited him--by serving her father faithfully.

A capitalist, for whom Geoffrey had undertaken several commissions, halted before him.

"h.e.l.lo! Quite alone, Thurston, and worrying over something as usual,"

he began, with Western brusqueness. "What has gone wrong? Have more of your dams burst, up yonder? One would fancy that floundering around through the ice and snow up there would be more congenial than these frivolities. I'm not great on them either, but it's a matter of dollars and cents with me. You perhaps know a little about this self-made--that's your British term, I think--company."

"Not so much as you do," answered Geoffrey. "Still, I have been wondering how some of the men earned their money. I understand that they have sense enough to be proud of their small beginnings, but they do not furnish instructive details as to the precise manner in which they achieved their success."

The capitalist, who was one of the cla.s.s described, laughed good-humoredly, as he seated himself beside Thurston.

"Well, how are you getting on up in the valley?" he inquired, and Geoffrey's eyes expressed faint amus.e.m.e.nt as he answered:

"As well as we expected, and, if we had our difficulties, you would hardly expect me to tell them to a director of the Industrial Enterprise Company."

"Perhaps not!" the capitalist smiled, for the Industrial Enterprise was the corporation which had opposed Savine's reclamation scheme.

"Anyway, the company is a speculation with me; my colleagues manage it without much of my a.s.sistance. But say, what's the matter with your respected chief? He has come right out of his sh.e.l.l to-night."

The speaker glanced towards Savine, who was surrounded by a group of well-known men.

"I tell you, Thurston, there's something uncanny about that man of late," he continued. "However, knowing there's no use trying to fool you, I'll give you a fair warning and come straight to something I may as well say now as later. Savine will go down like a house of cards some day, and those who lean upon him will find it, in our language, frosty weather. Now, suppose we made you a fair offer, would you join us?"

A curt refusal trembled upon Geoffrey's lips, when he reflected that, as soon as the work was finished, his relations with Savine would be drawn closer still. In the meantime, it was not advisable to give any hint to a possible enemy.

"I couldn't say until I heard what the offer is," he answered cautiously.

"You're a typical cold-blooded Britisher," a.s.serted the other man. "I don't know either. I leave all details to the members of the company; but we've a secretary, who understands all about it, in this house to-night. We're half of us here on business, directly or indirectly, and not for pleasure, so it's possible he may talk to you. But I see our hostess eying us, and it's time we walked along."

They moved forward together, and the woman whom they approached, beckoning Geoffrey, whom she had for some reason taken under her patronage, said: