"He is mad; they all know that he is mad," urged Trenholme, dissuading him.

They looked back, and saw the old man still preaching to the labourers under the tree. A mare with its foal, and two half-grown colts, had come up to an open fence within the tree's shadow, and, with their long gentle heads hanging over, they too seemed to be listening.

The Scotchman, exhilarated by the cooling of the atmosphere, genially invited Trenholme to a longer walk. Ch.e.l.laston Mountain, with its cool shades and fine prospect, was very near. A lane turned from the high road, which led to the mountain's base. A hospitable farmhouse stood where the mountain path began to ascend, suggesting sure offer of an evening meal. Trenholme looked at the peaceful lane, the beautiful hill, and all the sunny loveliness of the land, and refused the invitation. He had not time, he said.

So they walked back the mile they had come, and Trenholme little thought how soon, and with what agitation, he would pa.s.s that way again.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The next day, before Trenholme had had time to devise a plan for seeing Miss Rexford, Mrs. Martha brought him a telegram. She watched him as he drew his finger through the poor paper of the envelope, watched him as one might watch another on the eve of some decisive event; yet she could not have expected much from a telegram--they came too often.

"Ha!" cried Trenholme, "we are going to have visitors, Mrs. Martha."

A good deal to Trenholme's surprise, the message was from Alec, and from a point no further away than Quebec. It stated that he was there with Bates, who was ill, and he thought the best thing would be to bring him with him to Ch.e.l.laston, if his brother had house-room enough.

The answers we give to such appeals are more often the outcome of life-long habit than instances of separate volition. No question of what answer to send occurred to Trenholme's mind as he pencilled his reply, a.s.suring a welcome to the sick man.

When the answer was despatched he saw that, as fate had thrust the notice of this arrival between him and the proposed interview with Sophia; it would be better, after all, to wait only a day or two more, until he knew his brother's mind.

He heard nothing more from Alec that day. The day after was Sat.u.r.day, and it rained heavily.

"What time will the gentlemen arrive?" asked Mrs. Martha, but not as if she took much interest in the matter.

"I can't tell," he replied. "They will probably let us know; but it's best to be ready when guests may come any time, isn't it?"

He asked her this with a cheering smile, because her manner was strange, and he wished to rouse her to a sense of her duties.

"Yes, sir; 'twouldn't seem like as if we was truly expecting and hoping unless we did our best to be ready."

The fervour of her answer surprised him.

For some time past Winifred Rexford had been spending part of each morning learning housewifery of Mrs. Martha. That day, because of the rain, Trenholme insisted upon keeping her to dinner with him. He brought her into his dining-room with playful force, and set her at the head of his table. It was a great pleasure to him to have the child. He twitted her with her improvement in the culinary art, demanding all sorts of impossible dishes in the near future for his brother's entertainment. He was surprised at the sedateness of her answers, and at a strange look of excited solicitude that arose in her eyes. It seemed to him that she was several times on the point of saying something to him, and yet she did not speak.

"What is it, Princess Win?" he cried. "What is in your mind, little one?"

He came to the conclusion that she was not very well. He got no information from her on the subject of her health or anything else; but thinking naturally that the change in the weather might have given her cold, he took pains to wrap her in his own mackintosh and take her home under his own large umbrella.

When there, he went in. He was greatly cheered by the idea that, although he might not tell his mind that day, he was now and henceforth courting Sophia openly, whatever befell; but the open courting, since it had only begun with his resolution of yesterday, and existed only in his own intention, was naturally not recognised. He was received with the ordinary everyday friendliness. But a change had occurred in the family circ.u.mstances, nothing less than that they sat now in the long neglected and still unfurnished room which went by the name of the drawing-room.

The windows had been thrown open, and the covering taken from the family carriage. There it stood, still wheelless, but occupied now by Sophia and Mrs. Rexford, the girls and the darning basket, while some of the children climbed upon the box. Blue and Red, who were highly delighted with the arrangement, explained it to Trenholme.

"You see, we had a carriage we couldn't use, and a room we couldn't use for want of furniture; so this rainy day, when we all were so tired of the other room, mamma suddenly thought that we'd make the carriage do for furniture. It's the greatest fun possible." They gave little jumps on the soft cushions, and were actually darning with some energy on account of the change.

Trenholme shook hands with the carriage folk in the gay manner necessary to the occasion, but his heart ached for the little mother who had thus so bravely buried her last vestige of pride in the carriage by giving it to her children as a plaything.

"It's more comfortable than armchairs, and keeps the feet from the bare floor," she said to him, in defiance of any criticisms he might have in mind. But all his thought was with and for her, and in this he was pleased to see that he had divined Sophia's mind, for, after adding her warm but brief praise to the new arrangement, she changed the subject.

Winifred went upstairs quietly. Trenholme suggested that he hardly thought her looking quite well.

"She's an odd child," said Sophia. "I did not tell you, mamma, what I found her doing the other day. She was trying on the white frock she had this spring when she was confirmed. It's unlike her to do a thing like that for no reason; and when I teased her she began to cry, and then began speaking to me about religion. She has been puzzled by the views your housekeeper holds, Mr. Trenholme, and excited by old Cameron's teaching about the end of the world."

"I don't think it's the end of the world he's prophesying exactly," said Trenholme, musingly. "The Adventists believe that the earth will not be ruined, but glorified by the Second Advent."

"Children should not hear of such abstruse, far-off things," observed Mrs. Rexford; "it does harm; but with no nursery, no schoolroom, what can one do?"

Trenholme told them of Alec's telegram, and something of what he knew concerning Bates. His own knowledge was scanty, but he had not even said all he might have said when Mrs. Rexford politely regretted that her husband and son, taking advantage of the rain, had both gone to the next town to see some machinery they were buying, and would be away over Sunday, otherwise they would not have missed the opportunity offered by Sunday's leisure to call upon the newcomers.

"Oh, he's quite a common working-man, I fancy," added Trenholme, hastily, surprised at the gloss his words had thrown on Bates's position, and dimly realising that his way of putting things might perhaps at some other times be as misleading as it had just that moment been.

Then he went away rather abruptly, feeling burdened with the further apologies she made with respect to Alec.

CHAPTER XIX.

Trenholme went home and sat down to write an article for a magazine. Its subject was the discipline of life. He did not get on with it very well.

He rose more than once to look at the weather-gla.s.s and the weather.

Rain came in torrents, ceasing at intervals. The clouds swept over, with lighter and darker s.p.a.ces among them. The wind began to rise. Thunder was in the air; as it became dusk lightning was seen in the far distance.

A little after dark he heard a quick, light step upon the garden path.

The voice of the young dentist was audible at the door, and Mrs. Martha ushered him into the study. Trenholme had felt more or less prejudice against this fellow since he had become aware that he was in some way connected with the incident that had discomforted his brother in his lonely station. He looked at him with a glance of severe inquiry.

"I'm _real_ sorry to disturb you," said the dentist; "but, upon my word, I'm uneasy in my mind. I've lost old Mr. Cameron."

It occurred to Trenholme now for the first time since he had heard of Bates's coming that he, Bates, was the very man who could speak with authority as to whether the old man in question had a right to the name of Cameron. He wondered if the American could possibly have private knowledge of Bates's movements, and knew that his coming could dispel the mystery. If so, and if he had interest in keeping up the weird story, he had done well now to lose his charge for the time being. Wild and improbable as such a plot seemed, it was not more extraordinary than the fact that this intensely practical young man had sought the other and protected him so long.

"Your friend is in the habit of wandering, is he not?" asked Trenholme, guardedly.

"Can't say that he is since he came here, Princ.i.p.al. He's just like a child, coming in when it's dark. I've never"--he spoke with zeal--"I've never known that good old gentleman out as late as this, and it's stormy."

"Did you come here under the idea that I knew anything about him?"

"Well, no, I can't say that I did; but I reckoned you knew your Bible pretty well, and that you were the nearest neighbour of mine that did."

There was an attempt at nervous pleasantry in this, perhaps to hide real earnestness.

Trenholme frowned. "I don't understand you."

"Well, 'twould be strange if you did, come to think of it; but I'm mighty uneasy about that old man, and I've come to ask you what the Bible really does say about the Lord's coming. Whether he's crazed or not, that old man believes that He's coming to-night. He's been telling the folks all day that they ought to go out with joy to meet Him. I never thought of him budging from the house till some _manifestation_ occurred, which I thought _wouldn't_ occur, but when I found just now he was gone, it struck me all of a heap that he was gone out with that idea. I do a.s.sure you"--he spoke earnestly--"that's what he's after at this very time. He's gone out to meet Him, and I came to ask you--well--what sort of a place he'd be likely to choose. He knows his Bible right off, that old gentleman does; he's got his notions out of it, whether they're right or wrong."

Trenholme stared at him. It was some time before the young man's ideas made their way into his mind. Then he wondered if his apparent earnestness could possibly be real.

"Your application is an extraordinary one," he said stiffly.

Harkness was too sensitive not to perceive the direction the doubt had taken. "It may be extraordinary, but I do a.s.sure you it's genuine."