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diff --git a/old/13823-8.txt b/old/13823-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cfc2b62 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13823-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8795 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lady Merton, Colonist, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lady Merton, Colonist + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: October 21, 2004 [EBook #13823] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY MERTON, COLONIST *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner +and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +[Illustration: "ELIZABETH ... COULD YET FIND TIME TO WALK AND CLIMB, +PLUNGING SPIRIT AND SENSE IN THE BEAUTY OF THE ROCKIES"] + +LADY MERTON +COLONIST + +BY + +MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + +FRONTISPIECE +BY ALBERT STERNER + +1910 + + + + +A FOREWORD + +Towards the end of this story the readers of it will find an account of +an "unknown lake" in the northern Rockies, together with a picture of +its broad expanse, its glorious mountains, and of a white explorers' +tent pitched beside it. Strictly speaking, "Lake Elizabeth" is a lake of +dream. But it has an original on this real earth, which bears another +and a real name, and was discovered two years ago by my friend Mrs. +Schäffer, of Philadelphia, to whose enchanting narratives of travel and +exploration in these untrodden regions I listened with delight at Field, +British Columbia, in June, 1908. She has given me leave to use her own +photograph of the "unknown lake," and some details from her record of +it, for my own purposes; and I can only hope that in the summers to come +she may unlock yet other secrets, unravel yet other mysteries, in that +noble unvisited country which lies north and northeast of the Bow Valley +and the Kicking Horse Pass. + + MARY A. WARD. + + + +LADY MERTON, COLONIST + +CHAPTER I + +"I call this part of the line beastly depressing." + +The speaker tossed his cigarette-end away as he spoke. It fell on the +railway line, and the tiny smoke from it curled up for a moment against +the heavy background of spruce as the train receded. + +"All the same, this is going to be one of the most exciting parts of +Canada before long," said Lady Merton, looking up from her guide-book. +"I can tell you all about it." + +"For heaven's sake, don't!" said her companion hastily. "My dear +Elizabeth, I really must warn you. You're losing your head." + +"I lost it long ago. To-day I am a bore--to-morrow I shall be a +nuisance. Make up your mind to it." + +"I thought you were a reasonable person!--you used to be. Now look at +that view, Elizabeth. We've seen the same thing for twelve hours, and if +it wasn't soon going to be dark we should see the same thing for twelve +hours more. What is there to go mad over in that?" Her brother waved +his hand indignantly from right to left across the disappearing scene. +"As for me, I am only sustained by the prospect of the good dinner that +I know Yerkes means to give us in a quarter of an hour. I won't be a +minute late for it! Go and get ready, Elizabeth--" + +"Another lake!" cried Lady Merton, with a jump. "Oh, what a darling! +That's the twentieth since tea. Look at the reflections--and that +delicious island! And oh! what _are_ those birds?" + +She leant over the side of the observation platform, attached to the +private car in which she and her brother were travelling, at the rear of +the heavy Canadian Pacific train. To the left of the train a small blue +lake had come into view, a lake much indented with small bays running up +among the woods, and a couple of islands covered with scrub of beech and +spruce, set sharply on the clear water. On one side of the lake, the +forest was a hideous waste of burnt trunks, where the gaunt +stems--charred or singed, snapped or twisted, or flayed--of the trees +which remained standing rose dreadfully into the May sunshine, above a +chaos of black ruin below. But except for this blemish--the only sign of +man--the little lake was a gem of beauty. The spring green clothed its +rocky sides; the white spring clouds floated above it, and within it; +and small beaches of white pebbles seemed to invite the human feet which +had scarcely yet come near them. + +"What does it matter?" yawned her brother. "I don't want to shoot them. +And why you make such a fuss about the lakes, when, as you say yourself, +there are about two a mile, and none of them has got a name to its back, +and they're all exactly alike, and all full of beastly mosquitoes in the +summer--it beats me! I wish Yerkes would hurry up." He leant back +sleepily against the door of the car and closed his eyes. + +"It's _because_ they haven't got a name--and they're so endless!--and +the place is so big!--and the people so few!--and the chances are so +many--and so queer!" said Elizabeth Merton laughing. + +"What sort of chances?" + +"Chances of the future." + +"Hasn't got any chances!" said Philip Gaddesden, keeping his hands in +his pockets. + +"Hasn't it? Owl!" Lady Merton neatly pinched the arm nearest to her. "As +I've explained to you many times before, this is the Hinterland of +Ontario--and it's only been surveyed, except just along the railway, a +few years ago--and it's as rich as rich--" + +"I say, I wish you wouldn't reel out the guide-book like that!" grumbled +the somnolent person beside her. "As if I didn't know all about the +Cobalt mines, and that kind of stuff." + +"Did you make any money out of them, Phil?" + +"No--but the other fellows did. That's my luck." + +"Never mind, there'll be heaps more directly--hundreds." She stretched +out her hand vaguely towards an enchanting distance--hill beyond hill, +wood beyond wood; everywhere the glimmer of water in the hollows; +everywhere the sparkle of fresh leaf, the shining of the birch trunks +among the firs, the greys and purples of limestone rock; everywhere, +too, the disfiguring stain of fire, fire new or old, written, now on the +mouldering stumps of trees felled thirty years ago when the railway was +making, now on the young stems of yesterday. + +"I want to see it all in a moment of time," Elizabeth continued, still +above herself. "An air-ship, you know, Philip--and we should see it all +in a day, from here to James Bay. A thousand miles of it--stretched +below us--just waiting for man! And we'd drop down into an undiscovered +lake, and give it a name--one of our names--and leave a letter under a +stone. And then in a hundred years, when the settlers come, they'd find +it, and your name--or mine--would live forever." + +"I forbid you to take any liberties with my name, Elizabeth! I've +something better to do with it than waste it on a lake in--what do you +call it?--the 'Hinterland of Ontario.'" The young man mocked his +sister's tone. + +Elizabeth laughed and was silent. + +The train sped on, at its steady pace of some thirty miles an hour. The +spring day was alternately sunny and cloudy; the temperature was warm, +and the leaves were rushing out. Elizabeth Merton felt the spring in her +veins, an indefinable joyousness and expectancy; but she was conscious +also of another intoxication--a heat of romantic perception kindled in +her by this vast new country through which she was passing. She was a +person of much travel, and many experiences; and had it been prophesied +to her a year before this date that she could feel as she was now +feeling, she would not have believed it. She was then in Rome, steeped +in, ravished by the past--assisted by what is, in its way, the most +agreeable society in Europe. Here she was absorbed in a rushing present; +held by the vision of a colossal future; and society had dropped out of +her ken. Quebec, Montreal and Ottawa had indeed made themselves pleasant +to her; she had enjoyed them all. But it was in the wilderness that the +spell had come upon her; in these vast spaces, some day to be the home +of a new race; in these lakes, the playground of the Canada of the +future; in these fur stations and scattered log cabins; above all in the +great railway linking east and west, that she and her brother had come +out to see. + +For they had a peculiar relation to it. Their father had been one of its +earliest and largest shareholders, might indeed be reckoned among its +founders. He had been one, also, of a small group of very rich men who +had stood by the line in one of the many crises of its early history, +when there was often not enough money in the coffers of the company to +pay the weekly wages of the navvies working on the great iron road. He +was dead now, and his property in the line had been divided among his +children. But his name and services were not forgotten at Montreal, and +when his son and widowed daughter let it be known that they desired to +cross from Quebec to Vancouver, and inquired what the cost of a private +car might be for the journey, the authorities at Montreal insisted on +placing one of the official cars at their disposal. So that they were +now travelling as the guests of the C.P.R.; and the good will of one of +the most powerful of modern corporations went with them. + +They had left Toronto, on a May evening, when the orchards ran, one +flush of white and pink, from the great lake to the gorge of Niagara, +and all along the line northwards the white trilliums shone on the +grassy banks in the shadow of the woods; while the pleasant Ontario +farms flitted by, so mellowed and homelike already, midway between the +old life of Quebec, and this new, raw West to which they were going. +They had passed, also--but at night and under the moon--through the lake +country which is the playground of Toronto, as well known, and as +plentifully be-named as Westmoreland; and then at North Bay with the +sunrise they had plunged into the wilderness,--into the thousand miles +of forest and lake that lie between Old Ontario and Winnipeg. + +And here it was that Elizabeth's enthusiasm had become in her brother's +eyes a folly; that something wild had stirred in her blood, and sitting +there in her shady hat at the rear of the train, her eyes pursuing the +great track which her father had helped to bring into being, she shook +Europe from her, and felt through her pulses the tremor of one who +watches at a birth, and looks forward to a life to be-- + +"Dinner is ready, my lady." + +"Thank Heaven!" cried Philip Gaddesden, springing up. "Get some +champagne, please, Yerkes." + +"Philip!" said his sister reprovingly, "it is not good for you to have +champagne every night." + +Philip threw back his curly head, and grinned. + +"I'll see if I can do without it to-morrow. Come along, Elizabeth." + +They passed through the outer saloon, with its chintz-covered sofas and +chairs, past the two little bedrooms of the car, and the tiny kitchen to +the dining-room at the further end. Here stood a man in steward's livery +ready to serve, while from the door of the kitchen another older man, +thin and tanned, in a cook's white cap and apron, looked +benevolently out. + +"Smells good, Yerkes!" said Gaddesden as he passed. + +The cook nodded. + +"If only her ladyship'll find something she likes," he said, not without +a slight tone of reproach. + +"You hear that, Elizabeth?" said her brother as they sat down to the +well-spread board. + +Elizabeth looked plaintive. It was one of her chief weaknesses to wish +to be liked--adored, perhaps, is the better word--by her servants and +she generally accomplished it. But the price of Yerkes's affections +was too high. + +"It seems to me that we have only just finished luncheon, not to speak +of tea," she said, looking in dismay at the menu before her. "Phil, do +you wish to see me return home like Mrs. Melhuish?" + +Phil surveyed his sister. Mrs. Melhuish was the wife of their local +clergyman in Hampshire; a poor lady plagued by abnormal weight, and a +heart disease. + +"You might borrow pounds from Mrs. Melhuish, and nobody would ever know. +You really are too thin, Lisa--a perfect scarecrow. Of course Yerkes +sees that he could do a lot for you. All the same, that's a pretty gown +you've got on--an awfully pretty gown," he repeated with emphasis, +adding immediately afterwards in another tone--"Lisa!--I say!--you're +not going to wear black any more?" + +"No"--said Lady Merton, "no--I am not going to wear black any more." The +words came lingeringly out, and as the servant removed her plate, +Elizabeth turned to look out of the window at the endless woods, a +shadow on her beautiful eyes. + +She was slenderly made, with a small face and head round which the +abundant hair was very smoothly and closely wound. The hair was of a +delicate brown, the complexion clear, but rather colourless. Among other +young and handsome women, Elizabeth Merton made little effect; like a +fine pencil drawing, she required an attentive eye. The modelling of the +features, of the brow, the cheeks, the throat, was singularly refined, +though without a touch of severity; her hands, with their very long and +slender fingers, conveyed the same impression. Her dress, though dainty, +was simple and inconspicuous, and her movements, light, graceful, +self-controlled, seemed to show a person of equable temperament, without +any strong emotions. In her light cheerfulness, her perpetual interest +in the things about her, she might have reminded a spectator of some of +the smaller sea-birds that flit endlessly from wave to wave, for whom +the business of life appears to be summed up in flitting and poising. + +The comparison would have been an inadequate one. But Elizabeth Merton's +secrets were not easily known. She could rave of Canada; she rarely +talked of herself. She had married, at the age of nineteen, a young +Cavalry officer, Sir Francis Merton, who had died of fever within a year +of their wedding, on a small West African expedition for which he had +eagerly offered himself. Out of the ten months of their marriage, they +had spent four together. Elizabeth was now twenty-seven, and her +married life had become to her an insubstantial memory. She had been +happy, but in the depths of the mind she knew that she might not have +been happy very long. Her husband's piteous death had stamped upon her, +indeed, a few sharp memories; she saw him always,--as the report of a +brother officer, present at his funeral, had described him--wrapped in +the Flag, and so lowered to his grave, in a desert land. This image +effaced everything else; the weaknesses she knew, and those she had +begun to guess at. But at the same time she had not been crushed by the +tragedy; she had often scourged herself in secret for the rapidity with +which, after it, life had once more become agreeable to her. She knew +that many people thought her incapable of deep feeling. She supposed it +must be true. And yet there were moments when a self within herself +surprised and startled her; not so much, as yet, in connection with +persons, as with ideas, causes--oppressions, injustices, helpless +suffering; or, as now, with a new nation, visibly striking its "being +into bounds." + +During her widowhood she had lived much with her mother, and had devoted +herself particularly to this only brother, a delicate lad--lovable, +self-indulgent and provoking--for whom the unquestioning devotion of +two women had not been the best of schools. An attack of rheumatic fever +which had seized him on leaving Christchurch had scared both mother and +sister. He had recovered, but his health was not yet what it had been; +and as at home it was impossible to keep him from playing golf all day, +and bridge all night, the family doctor, in despair, recommended travel, +and Elizabeth had offered to take charge of him. It was not an easy +task, for although Philip was extremely fond of his sister, as the male +head of the family since his father's death he held strong convictions +with regard to the natural supremacy of man, and would probably never +"double Cape Turk." In another year's time, at the age of four and +twenty, he would inherit the family estate, and his mother's +guardianship would come to an end. He then intended to be done with +petticoat government, and to show these two dear women a thing or two. + + * * * * * + +The dinner was good, as usual; in Elizabeth's eyes, monstrously good. +There was to her something repellent in such luxurious fare enjoyed by +strangers, on this tourist-flight through a country so eloquent of man's +hard wrestle with rock and soil, with winter and the wilderness. The +blinds of the car towards the next carriage were rigorously closed, +that no one might interfere with the privacy of the rich; but Elizabeth +had drawn up the blind beside her, and looked occasionally into the +evening, and that endless medley of rock and forest and lake which lay +there outside, under the sunset. Once she gazed out upon a great gorge, +through which ran a noble river, bathed in crimson light; on its way, no +doubt, to Lake Superior, the vast, crescent-shaped lake she had dreamed +of in her school-room days, over her geography lessons, and was soon to +see with her own eyes. She thought of the uncompanioned beauty of the +streams, as it would be when the thunder of the train had gone by, of +its distant sources in the wild, and the loneliness of its long, long +journey. A little shiver stole upon her, the old tremor of man in +presence of a nature not yet tamed to his needs, not yet identified with +his feelings, still full therefore of stealthy and hostile powers, +creeping unawares upon his life. + +"This champagne is not nearly as good as last night," said Philip +discontentedly. "Yerkes must really try for something better at +Winnipeg. When do we arrive?" + +"Oh, some time to-morrow evening." + +"What a blessing we're going to bed!" said the boy, lighting his +cigarette. "You won't be able to bother me about lakes, Lisa." + +But he smiled at her as he spoke, and Elizabeth was so enchanted to +notice the gradual passing away of the look of illness, the brightening +of the eye, and slight filling out of the face, that he might tease her +as he pleased. + +Within an hour Philip Gaddesden was stretched on a comfortable bed sound +asleep. The two servants had made up berths in the dining-room; +Elizabeth's maid slept in the saloon. Elizabeth herself, wrapped in a +large cloak, sat awhile outside, waiting for the first sight of +Lake Superior. + +It came at last. A gleam of silver on the left--a line of purple +islands--frowning headlands in front--and out of the interminable shadow +of the forests, they swept into a broad moonlight. Over high bridges and +the roar of rivers, threading innumerable bays, burrowing through +headlands and peninsulas, now hanging over the cold shining of the +water, now lost again in the woods, the train sped on its wonderful way. +Elizabeth on her platform at its rear was conscious of no other living +creature. She seemed to be alone with the night and the vastness of the +lake, the awfulness of its black and purple coast. As far as she could +see, the trees on its shores were still bare; they had temporarily left +the spring behind; the North seemed to have rushed upon her in its +terror and desolation. She found herself imagining the storms that +sweep the lake in winter, measuring her frail life against the +loneliness and boundlessness around her. No sign of man, save in the few +lights of these scattered stations; and yet, for long, her main +impression was one of exultation in man's power and skill, which bore +her on and on, safe, through the conquered wilderness. + +Gradually, however, this note of feeling slid down into something much +softer and sadder. She became conscious of herself, and her personal +life; and little by little her exultation passed into yearning; her eyes +grew wet. For she had no one beside her with whom to share these secret +thoughts and passions--these fresh contacts with life and nature. Was it +always to be so? There was in her a longing, a "sehnsucht," for she +knew not what. + +She could marry, of course, if she wished. There was a possibility in +front of her, of which she sometimes thought. She thought of it now, +wistfully and kindly; but it scarcely availed against the sudden +melancholy, the passion of indefinite yearning which had assailed her. + +The night began to cloud rapidly. The moonlight died from the lake and +the coast. Soon a wind sprang up, lashing the young spruce and birch +growing among the charred wreck of the older forest, through which the +railway had been driven. Elizabeth went within, and she was no sooner in +bed than the rain came pelting on her window. + +She lay sleepless for a long time, thinking now, not of the world +outside, or of herself, but of the long train in front of her, and its +freight of lives; especially of the two emigrant cars, full, as she had +seen at North Bay, of Galicians and Russian Poles. She remembered the +women's faces, and the babies at their breasts. Were they all asleep, +tired out perhaps by long journeying, and soothed by the noise of the +train? Or were there hearts among them aching for some poor hovel left +behind, for a dead child in a Carpathian graveyard?--for a lover?--a +father?--some bowed and wrinkled Galician peasant whom the next winter +would kill? And were the strong, swarthy men dreaming of wealth, of the +broad land waiting, the free country, and the equal laws? + + * * * * * + +Elizabeth awoke. It was light in her little room. The train was at a +standstill. Winnipeg? + +A subtle sense of something wrong stole upon her. Why this murmur of +voices round the train? She pushed aside a corner of the blind beside +her. Outside a railway cutting, filled with misty rain--many persons +walking up and down, and a babel of talk-- + +Bewildered, she rang for her maid, an elderly and precise person who +had accompanied her on many wanderings. + +"Simpson, what's the matter? Are we near Winnipeg?" + +"We've been standing here for the last two hours, my lady. I've been +expecting to hear you ring long ago." + +Simpson's tone implied that her mistress had been somewhat crassly +sleeping while more sensitive persons had been awake and suffering. + +Elizabeth rubbed her eyes. "But what's wrong, Simpson, and where are +we?" + +"Goodness knows, my lady. We're hours away from Winnipeg--that's all I +know--and we're likely to stay here, by what Yerkes says." + +"Has there been an accident?" + +Simpson replied--sombrely--that something had happened, she didn't know +what--that Yerkes put it down to "the sink-hole," which according to him +was "always doing it"--that there were two trains in front of them at a +standstill, and trains coming up every minute behind them. + +"My dear Simpson!--that must be an exaggeration. There aren't trains +every minute on the C.P.R. Is Mr. Philip awake?" + +"Not yet, my lady." + +"And what on earth is a sink-hole?" asked Elizabeth. + + + +CHAPTER II + +Elizabeth had ample time during the ensuing sixteen hours for inquiry as +to the nature of sink-holes. + +When she emerged, dressed, into the saloon--she found Yerkes looking out +of the window in a brown study. He was armed with a dusting brush and a +white apron, but it did not seem to her that he had been making much +use of them. + +"Whatever is the matter, Yerkes? What is a sink-hole?" + +Yerkes looked round. + +"A sink-hole, my lady?" he said slowly--"A sink-hole, well, it's as you +may say--a muskeg." + +"A _what?_" + +"A place where you can't find no bottom, my lady. This one's a vixen, +she is! What she's cost the C.P.R.!"--he threw up his hands. "And +there's no contenting her--the more you give her the more she wants. +They give her ten trainloads of stuff a couple of months ago. No good! A +bit of moist weather and there she is at it again. Let an engine and +two carriages through last night--ten o'clock!" + +"Gracious! Was anybody hurt? What--a kind of bog?--a quicksand?" + +"Well," said Yerkes, resuming his dusting, and speaking with polite +obstinacy, "muskegs is what they call 'em in these parts. They'll have +to divert the line. I tell 'em so, scores of times. She was at this game +last year. Held me up twenty-one hours last fall." + +When Yerkes was travelling he spoke in a representative capacity. He +_was_ the line. + +"How many trains ahead of us are there? Yerkes?" + +"Two as I know on--may be more." + +"And behind?" + +"Three or four, my lady." + +"And how long are we likely to be kept?" + +"Can't say. They've been at her ten hours. She don't generally let +anyone over her under a good twenty--or twenty-four." + +"Yerkes!--what will Mr. Gaddesden say? And it's so damp and horrid." + +Elizabeth looked at the outside prospect in dismay. The rain was +drizzling down. The passengers walking up and down the line were in +heavy overcoats with their collars turned up. To the left of the line +there was a misty glimpse of water over a foreground of charred stumps. +On the other side rose a bank of scrubby wood, broken by a patch of +clearing, which held a rude log-cabin. What was she to do with +Philip all day? + +Suddenly a cow appeared on the patch of grass round the log hut. With a +sound of jubilation, Yerkes threw down his dusting brush and rushed out +of the car. Elizabeth watched him pursue the cow, and disappear round a +corner. What on earth was he about? + +Philip had apparently not yet been called. He was asleep, and Yerkes had +let well alone. But he must soon awake to the situation, and the problem +of his entertainment would begin. Elizabeth took up the guide-book and +with difficulty made out that they were about a hundred miles from +Winnipeg. Somewhere near Rainy Lake apparently. What a foolishly +appropriate name! + +"Hi!--hi!--" + +The shout startled her. Looking out she saw a group of passengers +grinning, and Yerkes running hard for the car, holding something in his +hand, and pursued by a man in a slouch hat, who seemed to be swearing. +Yerkes dashed into the car, deposited his booty in the kitchen, and +standing in the doorway faced the enemy. A terrific babel arose. + +Elizabeth appeared in the passage and demanded to know what had +happened. + +"All right, my lady," said Yerkes, mopping his forehead. "I've only been +and milked his cow. No saying where I'd have got any milk this side of +Winnipeg if I hadn't." + +"But, Yerkes, he doesn't seem to like it." + +"Oh, that's all right, my lady." + +But the settler was now on the steps of the car gesticulating and +scolding, in what Elizabeth guessed to be a Scandinavian tongue. He was +indeed a gigantic Swede, furiously angry, and Elizabeth had thoughts of +bearding him herself and restoring the milk, when some mysterious +transaction involving coin passed suddenly between the two men. The +Swede stopped short in the midst of a sentence, pocketed something, and +made off sulkily for the log hut. Yerkes, with a smile, and a wink to +the bystanders, retired triumphant on his prey. + +Elizabeth, standing at the door of the kitchen, inquired if supplies +were likely to run short. + +"Not in this car," said Yerkes, with emphasis. "What _they'll_ do"--a +jerk of his thumb towards the rest of the train in front--"can't say." + +"Of course we shall have to give them food!" cried Lady Merton, +delighted at the thought of getting rid of some of their superfluities. + +Yerkes showed a stolid face. + +"The C.P.R.'ll have to feed 'em--must. That's the regulation. +Accident--free meals. That hasn't nothing to do with me. They don't come +poaching on my ground. I say, look out! Do yer call that bacon, or +buffaler steaks?" + +And Yerkes rushed upon his subordinate, Bettany, who was cutting the +breakfast bacon with undue thickness, and took the thing in hand +himself. The crushed Bettany, who was never allowed to finish anything, +disappeared hastily in order to answer the electric bell which was +ringing madly from Philip Gaddesden's berth. + +"Conductor!" cried a voice from the inner platform outside the +dining-room and next the train. + +"And what might you be wanting, sir?" said Bettany jauntily, opening the +door to the visitor. Bettany was a small man, with thin harrassed +features and a fragment of beard, glib of speech towards everybody +but Yerkes. + +"Your conductor got some milk, I think, from that cabin." + +"He did--but only enough for ourselves. Sorry we can't oblige you." + +"All the same, I am going to beg some of it. May I speak to the +gentleman?" + +"Mr. Gaddesden, sir, is dressing. The steward will attend to you." + +And Bettany retired ceremoniously in favour of Yerkes, who hearing +voices had come out of his den. + +"I have come to ask for some fresh milk for a baby in the emigrant car," +said the stranger. "Looks sick, and the mother's been crying. They've +only got tinned milk in the restaurant and the child won't touch it." + +"Sorry it's that particular, sir. But I've got only what I want." + +"Yerkes!" cried Elizabeth Merton, in the background. "Of course the baby +must have it. Give it to the gentleman, please, at once." + +The stranger removed his hat and stepped into the tiny dining-room where +Elizabeth was standing. He was tall and fair-skinned, with a blonde +moustache, and very blue eyes. He spoke--for an English ear--with the +slight accent which on the Canadian side of the border still proclaims +the neighbourhood of the States. + +"I am sorry to trouble you, madam," he said, with deference. "But the +child seems very weakly, and the mother herself has nothing to give it. +It was the conductor of the restaurant car who sent me here." + +"We shall be delighted," said Lady Merton, eagerly. "May I come with +you, if you are going to take it? Perhaps I could do something for +the mother." + +The stranger hesitated a moment. + +"An emigrant car full of Galicians is rather a rough sort of +place--especially at this early hour in the morning. But if you +don't mind--" + +"I don't mind anything. Yerkes, is that _all_ the milk?". + +"All to speak of, my lady," said Yerkes, nimbly retreating to his den. + +Elizabeth shook her head as she looked at the milk. But her visitor +laughed. + +"The baby won't get through that to-day. It's a regular little +scarecrow. I shouldn't think the mother'll rear it." + +They stepped out on to the line. The drizzle descended on Lady Merton's +bare head and grey travelling dress. + +"You ought to have an umbrella," said the Canadian, looking at her in +some embarrassment. And he ran back to the car for one. Then, while she +carried the milk carefully in both hands, he held the umbrella over her, +and they passed through the groups of passengers who were strolling +disconsolately up and down the line in spite of the wet, or exchanging +lamentations with others from two more stranded trains, one drawn up +alongside, the other behind. + +Many glances were levelled at the slight Englishwoman, with the +delicately pale face, and at the man escorting her. Elizabeth meanwhile +was putting questions. How long would they be detained? Her brother with +whom she was travelling was not at all strong. Unconsciously, perhaps, +her voice took a note of complaint. + +"Well, we can't any of us cross--can we?--till they come to some bottom +in the sink-hole," said the Canadian, interrupting her a trifle bluntly. + +Elizabeth laughed. "We may be here then till night." + +"Possibly. But you'll be the first over." + +"How? There are some trains in front." + +"That doesn't matter. They'll move you up. They're very vexed it should +have happened to you." + +Elizabeth felt a trifle uncomfortable. Was the dear young man tilting at +the idle rich--and the corrupt Old World? She stole a glance at him, but +perceived only that in his own tanned and sunburnt way he was a +remarkably handsome well-made fellow, built on a rather larger scale +than the Canadians she had so far seen. A farmer? His manners were not +countrified. But a farmer in Canada or the States may be of all +social grades. + +By this time they had reached the emigrant car, the conductor of which +was standing on the steps. He was loth to allow Lady Merton to enter, +but Elizabeth persisted. Her companion led the way, pushing through a +smoking group of dark-faced men hanging round the entrance. + +Inside, the car was thick, indeed, with smoke and the heavy exhalations +of the night. Men and women were sitting on the wooden benches; some +women were cooking in the tiny stove-room attached to the car; children, +half naked and unwashed, were playing on the floor; here and there a man +was still asleep; while one old man was painfully conning a paper of +"Homestead Regulations" which had been given him at Montreal, a lad of +eighteen helping him; and close by another lad was writing a letter, his +eyes passing dreamily from the paper to the Canadian landscape outside, +of which he was clearly not conscious. In a corner, surrounded by three +or four other women, was the mother they had come to seek. She held a +wailing baby of about a year old in her arms. At the sight of Elizabeth, +the child stopped its wailing, and lay breathing fast and feebly, its +large bright eyes fixed on the new-comer. The mother turned away +abruptly. It was not unusual for persons from the parlour-cars to ask +leave to walk through the emigrants'. + +But Elizabeth's companion said a few words to her, apparently in +Russian, and Elizabeth, stooping over her, held out the milk. Then a +dark face reluctantly showed itself, and great black eyes, in deep, +lined sockets; eyes rather of a race than a person, hardly conscious, +hardly individualised, yet most poignant, expressing some feeling, +remote and inarticulate, that roused Elizabeth's. She called to the +conductor for a cup and a spoon; she made her way into the malodorous +kitchen, and got some warm water and sugar; then kneeling by the child, +she put a spoonful of the diluted and sweetened milk into the +mother's hand. + + * * * * * + +"Was it foolish of me to offer her that money?" said Elizabeth with +flushed cheeks as they walked back through the rain. "They looked so +terribly poor." + +The Canadian smiled. + +"I daresay it didn't do any harm," he said indulgently. "But they are +probably not poor at all. The Galicians generally bring in quite a fair +sum. And after a year or two they begin to be rich. They never spend a +farthing they can help. It costs money--or time--to be clean, so they +remain dirty. Perhaps we shall teach them--after a bit." + +His companion looked at him with a shy but friendly curiosity. + +"How did you come to know Russian?" + +"When I was a child there were some Russian Poles on the next farm to +us. I used to play with the boys, and learnt a little. The conductor +called me in this morning to interpret. These people come from the +Russian side of the Carpathians." + +"Then you are a Canadian yourself?--from the West?" + +"I was born in Manitoba." + +"I am quite in love with your country!" + +Elizabeth paused beside the steps leading to their car. As she spoke, +her brown eyes lit up, and all her small features ran over, suddenly, +with life and charm. + +"Yes, it's a good country," said the Canadian, rather drily. "It's going +to be a great country. Is this your first visit?" + +But the conversation was interrupted by a reproachful appeal from +Yerkes. + +"Breakfast, my lady, has been hotted twice." + +The Canadian looked at Elizabeth curiously, lifted his hat, and went +away. + +"Well, if this doesn't take the cake!" said Philip Gaddesden, throwing +himself disconsolately into an armchair. "I bet you, Elizabeth, we +shall be here forty-eight hours. And this damp goes through one." + +The young man shivered, as he looked petulantly out through the open +doorway of the car to the wet woods beyond. Elizabeth surveyed him with +some anxiety. Like herself he was small, and lightly built. But his +features were much less regular than hers; the chin and nose were +childishly tilted, the eyes too prominent. His bright colour, +however--(mother and sister could well have dispensed with that touch of +vivid red on the cheeks!)--his curly hair, and his boyish ways made him +personally attractive; while in his moments of physical weakness, his +evident resentment of Nature's treatment of him, and angry determination +to get the best of her, had a touch of something that was +pathetic--that appealed. + +Elizabeth brought a rug and wrapped it round him. But she did not try to +console him; she looked round for something or someone to amuse him. + +On the line, just beyond the railed platform of the car, a group of men +were lounging and smoking. One of them was her acquaintance of the +morning. Elizabeth, standing on the platform waited till he turned in +her direction--caught his eye, and beckoned. He came with alacrity. She +stooped over the rail to speak to him. + +"I'm afraid you'll think it very absurd"--her shy smile broke +again--"but do you think there's anyone in this train who plays bridge?" + +He laughed. + +"Certainly. There is a game going on at this moment in the car behind +you." + +"Is it--is it anybody--we could ask to luncheon?--who'd come, I mean," +she added, hurriedly. + +"I should think they'd come--I should think they'd be glad. Your cook, +Yerkes, is famous on the line. I know two of the people playing. They +are Members of Parliament." + +"Oh! then perhaps I know them too," cried Elizabeth, brightening. + +He laughed again. + +"The Dominion Parliament, I mean." He named two towns in Manitoba, while +Lady Merton's pink flush showed her conscious of having betrayed her +English insularity. "Shall I introduce you?" + +"Please!--if you find an opportunity. It's for my brother. He's +recovering from an illness." + +"And you want to cheer him up. Of course. Well, he'll want it to-day." +The young man looked round him, at the line strewn with unsightly +débris, the ugly cutting which blocked the view, and the mists +up-curling from the woods; then at the slight figure beside him. The +corners of his mouth tried not to laugh. "I am afraid you are not going +to like Canada, if it treats you like this." + +"I've liked every minute of it up till now," said Elizabeth warmly. "Can +you tell me--I should like to know--who all these people are?" She waved +her hand towards the groups walking up and down. + +"Well, you see," said the Canadian after a moment's hesitation, +"Canada's a big place!" + +He looked round on her with a smile so broad and sudden that Elizabeth +felt a heat rising in her cheeks. Her question had no doubt been a +little naïve. + +But the young man hurried on, composing his face quickly. + +"Some of them, of course, are tourists like yourselves. But I do know a +few of them. That man in the clerical coat, and the round collar, is +Father Henty--a Jesuit well known in Winnipeg--a great man among the +Catholics here." + +"But a disappointed one," said Lady Merton. + +The Canadian looked surprised. Elizabeth, proud of her knowledge, went +on: + +"Isn't it true the Catholics hoped to conquer the Northwest--and +so--with Quebec--to govern you all? And now the English and American +immigration has spoilt all their chances--poor things!" + +"That's about it. Did they tell you that in Toronto?" + +Elizabeth stiffened. The slight persistent tone of mockery in the young +man's voice was beginning to offend her. + +"And the others?" she said, without noticing his question. + +It was the Canadian's turn to redden. He changed his tone. + +"--The man next him is a professor at the Manitoba University. The +gentleman in the brown suit is going to Vancouver to look after some big +lumber leases he took out last year. And that little man in the Panama +hat has been keeping us all alive. He's been prospecting for silver in +New Ontario--thinks he's going to make his fortune in a week." + +"Oh, but that will do exactly for my brother!" cried Elizabeth, +delighted. "Please introduce us." + +And hurrying back into the car she burst upon the discontented gentleman +within. Philip, who was just about to sally forth into the damp, against +the entreaties of his servant, and take his turn at shying stones at a +bottle on the line, was appeased by her report, and was soon seated, +talking toy speculation, with a bronzed and brawny person, who watched +the young Englishman, as they chatted, out of a pair of humorous eyes. +Philip believed himself a great financier, but was not in truth either +very shrewd or very daring, and his various coups or losses generally +left his exchequer at the end of the year pretty much what it had been +the year before. But the stranger, who seemed to have staked out claims +at one time or another, across the whole face of the continent, from +Klondyke to Nova Scotia, kept up a mining talk that held him enthralled; +and Elizabeth breathed freely. + +She returned to the platform. The scene was _triste_, but the rain had +for the moment stopped. She hailed an official passing by, and asked if +there was any chance of their soon going on. The man smiled and +shook his head. + +Her Canadian acquaintance, who was standing near, came up to the car as +he heard her question. + +"I have just seen a divisional superintendent. We may get on about nine +o'clock to-night." + +"And it is now eleven o'clock in the morning," sighed Lady Merton. +"Well!--I think a little exercise would be a good thing." + +And she descended the steps of the car. The Canadian hesitated. + +"Would you allow me to walk with you?" he said, with formality. "I +might perhaps be able to tell you a few things. I belong to +the railway." + +"I shall be greatly obliged," said Elizabeth, cordially. "Do you mean +that you are an official?" + +"I am an engineer--in charge of some construction work in the Rockies." + +Lady Merton's face brightened. + +"Indeed! I think that must be one of the most interesting things in the +world to be." + +The Canadian's eyebrows lifted a little. + +"I don't know that I ever thought of it like that," he said, half +smiling. "It's good work--but I've done things a good deal livelier +in my time." + +"You've not always been an engineer?" + +"Very few people are always 'anything' in Canada," he said, laughing. +"It's like the States. One tries a lot of things. Oh, I was trained as +an engineer--at Montreal. But directly I had finished with that I went +off to Klondyke. I made a bit of money--came back--and lost it all, in a +milling business--over there"--he pointed eastwards--"on the Lake of the +Woods. My partner cheated me. Then I went exploring to the north, and +took a Government job at the same time--paying treaty money to the +Indians. Then, five years ago, I got work for the C.P.R. But I shall +cut it before long. I've saved some money again. I shall take up land, +and go into politics." + +"Politics?" repeated Elizabeth, wishing she might some day know what +politics meant in Canada. "You're not married?" she added pleasantly. + +"I am not married." + +"And may I ask your name?" + +His name, it seemed, was George Anderson, and presently as they walked +up and down he became somewhat communicative about himself, though +always within the limits, as it seemed to her, of a natural dignity, +which developed indeed as their acquaintance progressed. He told her +tales, especially, of his Indian journeys through the wilds about the +Athabasca and Mackenzie rivers, in search of remote Indian +settlements--that the word of England to the red man might be kept; and +his graphic talk called up before her the vision of a northern +wilderness, even wilder and remoter than that she had just passed +through, where yet the earth teemed with lakes and timber and +trout-bearing streams, and where--"we shall grow corn some day," as he +presently informed her. "In twenty years they will have developed seed +that will ripen three weeks earlier than wheat does now in Manitoba. +Then we shall settle that country--right away!--to the far north." His +tone stirred and deepened. A little while before, it had seemed to her +that her tourist enthusiasm amused him. Yet by flashes, she began to +feel in him something, beside which her own raptures fell silent. Had +she, after all, hit upon a man--a practical man--who was yet conscious +of the romance of Canada? + +Presently she asked him if there was no one dependent on him--no +mother?--or sisters? + +"I have two brothers--in the Government service at Ottawa. I had four +sisters." + +"Are they married?" + +"They are dead," he said, slowly. "They and my mother were burnt to +death." + +She exclaimed. Her brown eyes turned upon him--all sudden horror and +compassion. + +"It was a farmhouse where we were living--and it took fire. Mother and +sisters had no time to escape. It was early morning. I was a boy of +eighteen, and was out on the farm doing my chores. When I saw smoke and +came back, the house was a burning mass, and--it was all over." + +"Where was your father?" + +"My father is dead." + +"But he was there--at the time of the fire?" + +"Yes. He was there." + +He had suddenly ceased to be communicative, and she instinctively asked +no more questions, except as to the cause of the conflagration. + +"Probably an explosion of coal-oil. It was sometimes used to light the +fire with in the morning." + +"How very, very terrible!" she said gently, after a moment, as though +she felt it. "Did you stay on at the farm?" + +"I brought up my two brothers. They were on a visit to some neighbours +at the time of the fire. We stayed on three years." + +"With your father?" + +"No; we three alone." + +She felt vaguely puzzled; but before she could turn to another subject, +he had added-- + +"There was nothing else for us to do. We had no money and no +relations--nothing but the land. So we had to work it--and we managed. +But after three years we'd saved a little money, and we wanted to get a +bit more education. So we sold the land and moved up to Montreal." + +"How old were the brothers when you took on the farm?" + +"Thirteen--and fifteen." + +"Wonderful!" she exclaimed. "You must be proud." + +He laughed out. + +"Why, that kind of thing's done every day in this country! You can't +idle in Canada." + +They had turned back towards the train. In the doorway of the car sat +Philip Gaddesden lounging and smoking, enveloped in a fur coat, his +knees covered with a magnificent fur rug. A whisky and soda had just +been placed at his right hand. Elizabeth thought--"He said that because +he had seen Philip." But when she looked at him, she withdrew her +supposition. His eyes were not on the car, and he was evidently thinking +of something else. + +"I hope your brother will take no harm," he said to her, as they +approached the car. "Can I be of any service to you in Winnipeg?" + +"Oh, thank you. We have some introductions--" + +"Of course. But if I can--let me know." + +An official came along the line, with a packet in his hand. At sight of +Elizabeth he stopped and raised his hat. + +"Am I speaking to Lady Merton? I have some letters here, that have been +waiting for you at Winnipeg, and they've sent them out to you." + +He placed the packet in her hand. The Canadian moved away, but not +before Elizabeth had seen again the veiled amusement in his eyes. It +seemed to him comic, no doubt, that the idlers of the world should be so +royally treated. But after all--she drew herself up--her father had +been no idler. + +She hastened to her brother; and they fell upon their letters. + +"Oh, Philip!"--she said presently, looking up--"Philip! Arthur Delaine +meets us at Winnipeg." + +"Does he? _Does he_?" repeated the young man, laughing. "I say, Lisa!--" + +Elizabeth took no notice of her brother's teasing tone. Nor did her +voice, as she proceeded to read him the letter she held in her hand, +throw any light upon her own feelings with regard to it. + +The weary day passed. The emigrants were consoled by free meals; and the +delicate baby throve on the Swede's ravished milk. For the rest, the +people in the various trains made rapid acquaintance with each other; +bridge went merrily in more than one car, and the general inconvenience +was borne with much philosophy, even by Gaddesden. At last, when +darkness had long fallen, the train to which the private car was +attached moved slowly forward amid cheers of the bystanders. + +Elizabeth and her brother were on the observation platform, with the +Canadian, whom with some difficulty they had persuaded to share +their dinner. + +"I told you"--said Anderson--"that you would be passed over first." He +pointed to two other trains in front that had been shunted to make +room for them. + +Elizabeth turned to him a little proudly. + +"But I should like to say--it's not for our own sakes--not in the +least!--it is for my father, that they are so polite to us." + +"I know--of course I know!" was the quick response. "I have been talking +to some of our staff," he went on, smiling. "They would do anything for +you. Perhaps you don't understand. You are the guests of the railway. +And I too belong to the railway. I am a very humble person, but--" + +"You also would do anything for us?" asked Elizabeth, with her soft +laugh. "How kind you all are!" + +She looked charming as she said it--her face and head lit up by the line +of flaring lights through which they were slowly passing. The line was +crowded with dark-faced navvies, watching the passage of the train as it +crept forward. + +One of the officials in command leapt up on the platform of the car, and +introduced himself. He was worn out with the day's labour, but +triumphant. "It's all right now--but, my word! the stuff we've +thrown in!--" + +He and Anderson began some rapid technical talk. Slowly, they passed +over the quicksand which in the morning had engulfed half a train; amid +the flare of torches, and the murmur of strange speech, from the +Galician and Italian labourers, who rested on their picks and stared and +laughed, as they went safely by. + +"How I love adventures!" cried Elizabeth, clasping her hands. + +"Even little ones?" said the Canadian, smiling. But this time she was +not conscious of any note of irony in his manner, rather of a kind +protectingness--more pronounced, perhaps, than it would have been in an +Englishman, at the same stage of acquaintance. But Elizabeth liked it; +she liked, too, the fine bare head that the torchlight revealed; and the +general impression of varied life that the man's personality produced +upon her. Her sympathies, her imagination were all trembling towards the +Canadians, no less than towards their country. + + + +CHAPTER III + +"Mr. Delaine, sir?" + +The gentleman so addressed turned to see the substantial form of Simpson +at his elbow. They were both standing in the spacious hall of the C.P.R. +Hotel adjoining the station at Winnipeg. + +"Her ladyship, sir, asked me to tell you she would be down directly. And +would you please wait for her, and take her to see the place where the +emigrants come. She doesn't think Mr. Gaddesden will be down till +luncheon-time." + +Arthur Delaine thanked the speaker for her information, and then sat +down in a comfortable corner, _Times_ in hand, to wait for Lady Merton. + +She and her brother had arrived, he understood, in the early hours at +Winnipeg, after the agitations and perils of the sink-hole. Philip had +gone at once to bed and to slumber. Lady Merton would soon, it seemed, +be ready for anything that Winnipeg might have to show her. + +The new-comer had time, however, to realise and enjoy a pleasant +expectancy before she appeared. He was apparently occupied with the +_Times_, but in reality he was very conscious all the time of his own +affairs and of a certain crisis to which, in his own belief, he had now +brought them. In the first place, he could not get over his astonishment +at finding himself where he was. The very aspect of the Winnipeg hotel, +as he looked curiously round it, seemed to prove to him both the +seriousness of certain plans and intentions of his own, and the unusual +decision with which he had been pursuing them. + +For undoubtedly, of his own accord, and for mere travellers' reasons, he +would not at this moment be travelling in Canada. The old world was +enough for him; and neither in the States nor in Canada had he so far +seen anything which would of itself have drawn him away from his +Cumberland house, his classical library, his pets, his friends and +correspondents, his old servants and all the other items in a comely and +dignified way of life. + +He was just forty and unmarried, a man of old family, easy disposition, +and classical tastes. He had been for a time Member of Parliament for +one of the old Universities, and he was now engaged on a verse +translation of certain books of the Odyssey. That this particular labour +had been undertaken before did not trouble him. It was in fact his +delight to feel himself a link in the chain of tradition--at once the +successor and progenitor of scholars. Not that his scholarship was +anything illustrious or profound. Neither as poet nor Hellenist would he +ever leave any great mark behind him; but where other men talk of "the +household of faith," he might have talked rather of "the household of +letters," and would have seen himself as a warm and familiar sitter by +its hearth. A new edition of some favourite classic; his weekly +_Athenæum_; occasional correspondence with a French or Italian +scholar--(he did not read German, and disliked the race)--these were his +pleasures. For the rest he was the landlord of a considerable estate, as +much of a sportsman as his position required, and his Conservative +politics did not include any sympathy for the more revolutionary +doctrines--economic or social--which seemed to him to be corrupting his +party. In his youth, before the death of an elder brother, he had been +trained as a doctor, and had spent some time in a London hospital. In no +case would he ever have practised. Before his training was over he had +revolted against the profession, and against the "ugliness," as it +seemed to him, of the matters and topics with which a doctor must +perforce be connected. His elder brother's death, which, however, he +sincerely regretted, had in truth solved many difficulties. + +In person he was moderately tall, with dark grizzled hair, agreeable +features and a moustache. Among his aristocratic relations whom he met +in London, the men thought him a little dishevelled and old-fashioned; +the women pronounced him interesting and "a dear." His manners were +generally admired, except by captious persons who held that such a fact +was of itself enough to condemn them; and he was welcome in many English +and some foreign circles. For he travelled every spring, and was well +acquainted with the famous places of Europe. It need only be added that +he had a somewhat severe taste in music, and could render both Bach and +Handel on the piano with success. + +His property was only some six miles distant from Martindale Park, the +Gaddesdens' home. During the preceding winter he had become a frequent +visitor at Martindale, while Elizabeth Merton was staying with her +mother and brother, and a little ripple of talk had begun to flow +through the district. Delaine, very fastidious where personal dignity +was concerned, could not make up his mind either to be watched or +laughed at. He would have liked to woo--always supposing that wooing +there was to be--with a maximum of dignity and privacy, surrounded by a +friendly but not a forcing atmosphere. But Elizabeth Merton was a great +favourite in her own neighbourhood, and people became impatient. Was it +to be a marriage or was it not? + +As soon as he felt this enquiry in the air, Mr. Delaine went +abroad--abruptly--about a month before Elizabeth and her brother started +for Canada. It was said that he had gone to Italy; but some few persons +knew that it was his intention to start from Genoa for the United +States, in order that he might attend a celebration at Harvard +University in honour of a famous French Hellenist, who had covered +himself with glory in Delaine's eyes by identifying a number of real +sites with places mentioned in the Odyssey. Nobody, however, knew but +himself, that, when that was done, he meant to join the brother and +sister on part of their Canadian journey, and that he hoped thereby to +become better acquainted with Elizabeth Merton than was possible--for a +man at least of his sensitiveness--under the eyes of an inquisitive +neighbourhood. + +For this step Lady Merton's consent was of course necessary. He had +accordingly written from Boston to ask if it would be agreeable to them +that he should go with them through the Rockies. The proposal was most +natural. The Delaines and Gaddesdens had been friends for many years, +and Arthur Delaine enjoyed a special fame as a travelling +companion--easy, accomplished and well-informed. + +Nevertheless, he waited at Boston in some anxiety for Elizabeth's +answer. When it came, it was all cordiality. By all means let him go +with them to the Rockies. They could not unfortunately offer him +sleeping room in the car. But by day Lady Merton hoped he would be their +guest, and share all their facilities and splendours. "I shall be so +glad of a companion for Philip, who is rapidly getting strong enough to +give me a great deal of trouble." + +That was how she put it--how she must put it, of course. He perfectly +understood her. + +And now here he was, sitting in the C.P.R. Hotel at Winnipeg, at a time +of year when he was generally in Paris or Rome, investigating the latest +Greek acquisitions of the Louvre, or the last excavation in the Forum; +picnicking in the Campagna; making expeditions to Assisi or Subiaco; and +in the evenings frequenting the drawing-rooms of ministers and +ambassadors. + +He looked up presently from the _Times_, and at the street outside; the +new and raw street, with its large commercial buildings of the American +type, its tramcars and crowded sidewalks. The muddy roadway, the gaps +and irregularities in the street façade, the windows of a great store +opposite, displeased his eye. The whole scene seemed to him to have no +atmosphere. As far as he was concerned, it said nothing, it +touched nothing. + +What was it he was to be taken to see? Emigration offices? He resigned +himself, with a smile. The prospect made him all the more pleasantly +conscious that one feeling, and one feeling only, could possibly have +brought him here. + +"Ah! there you are." + +A light figure hurried toward him, and he rose in haste. + +But Lady Merton was intercepted midway by a tall man, quite unknown to +Delaine. + +"I have arranged everything for three o'clock," said the interloper. +"You are sure that will suit you?" + +"Perfectly! And the guests?" + +"Half a dozen, about, are coming." George Anderson ran through the list, +and Elizabeth laughed merrily, while extending her hand to Delaine. + +"How amusing! A party--and I don't know a soul in Winnipeg. Arrived this +morning--and going this evening! So glad to see you, Mr. Arthur. You are +coming, of course?" + +"Where?" said Delaine, bewildered. + +"To my tea, this afternoon. Mr. Anderson--Mr. Delaine. Mr. Anderson has +most kindly arranged a perfectly delightful party!--in our car this +afternoon. We are to go and see a great farm belonging to some friend of +his, about twenty miles out--prize cattle and horses--that kind of +thing. Isn't it good of him?" + +"Charming!" murmured Delaine. "Charming!" His gaze ran over the figure +of the Canadian. + +"Yerkes of course will give us tea," said Elizabeth. "His cakes are a +strong point"; she turned to Anderson. "And we may really have +an engine?" + +"Certainly. We shall run you out in forty minutes. You still wish to go +on to-night?" + +"Philip does. Can we?" + +"You can do anything you wish," said Anderson, smiling. + +Elizabeth thanked him, and they chatted a little more about the +arrangements and guests for the afternoon, while Delaine listened. Who +on earth was this new acquaintance of Lady Merton's? Some person she had +met in the train apparently, and connected with the C.P.R. A +good-looking fellow, a little too sure of himself; but that of course +was the Colonial fault. + +"One of the persons coming this afternoon is an old Montreal +fellow-student of mine," the Canadian was saying. "He is going to be a +great man some day. But if you get him to talk, you won't like his +opinions--I thought I'd better warn you." + +"How very interesting!" put in Delaine, with perhaps excessive +politeness. "What sort of opinions? Do you grow any Socialists here?" + +Anderson examined the speaker, as it were for the first time. + +"The man I was speaking of is a French-Canadian," he said, rather +shortly, "and a Catholic." + +"The very man I want to see," cried Elizabeth. "I suppose he hates us?" + +"Who?--England? Not at all. He loves England--or says he does--and hates +the Empire." + +"'Love me, love my Empire!'" said Elizabeth. "But, I see--I am not to +talk to him about the Boer War, or contributing to the Navy?" + +"Better not," laughed Anderson. "I am sure he will want to behave +himself; but he sometimes loses his head." + +Elizabeth sincerely hoped he might lose it at her party. + +"We want as much Canada as possible, don't we?" She appealed to +Delaine. + +"To see, in fact, the 'young barbarians--all at play!'" said Anderson. +The note of sarcasm had returned to his clear voice. He stood, one hand +on his hip, looking down on Lady Merton. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Elizabeth, protesting; while Delaine was conscious of +surprise that anyone in the New World should quote anything. + +Anderson hastily resumed: "No, no. I know you are most kind, in wishing +to see everything you can." + +"Why else should one come to the Colonies?" put in Delaine. Again his +smile, as he spoke, was a little overdone. + +"Oh, we mustn't talk of Colonies," cried Elizabeth, looking at Anderson; +"Canada, Mr. Arthur, doesn't like to be called a colony." + +"What is she, then?" asked Delaine, with an amused shrug of the +shoulders. + +"She is a nation!" said the Canadian, abruptly. Then, turning to Lady +Merton, he rapidly went through some other business arrangements +with her. + +"Three o'clock then for the car. For this morning you are provided?" He +glanced at Delaine. + +Lady Merton replied that Mr. Delaine would take her round; and Anderson +bowed and departed. + +"Who is he, and how did you come across him?" asked Delaine, as they +stepped into the street. + +Elizabeth explained, dwelling with enthusiasm on the kindness and +ability with which the young man, since their acquaintance began, had +made himself their courier. "Philip, you know, is no use at all. But Mr. +Anderson seems to know everybody--gets everything done. Instead of +sending my letters round this morning he telephoned to everybody for me. +And everybody is coming. Isn't it too kind? You know it is for Papa's +sake"--she explained eagerly--"because Canada thinks she owes him +something." + +Delaine suggested that perhaps life in Winnipeg was monotonous, and its +inhabitants might be glad of distractions. He also begged--with a slight +touch of acerbity--that now that he had joined them he too might be +made use of. + +"Ah! but you don't know the country," said Lady Merton gently. "Don't +you feel that we must get the natives to guide us--to put us in the way? +It is only they who can really feel the poetry of it all." + +Her face kindled. Arthur Delaine, who thought that her remark was one of +the foolish exaggerations of nice women, was none the less conscious as +she made it, that her appearance was charming--all indeed that a man +could desire in a wife. Her simple dress of white linen, her black hat, +her lovely eyes, and little pointed chin, the bunch of white trilliums +at her belt, which a child in the emigrant car had gathered and given +her the day before--all her personal possessions and accessories seemed +to him perfection. Yes!--but he meant to go slowly, for both their +sakes. It seemed fitting and right, however, at this point that he +should express his great pleasure and gratitude in being allowed to join +them. Elizabeth replied simply, without any embarrassment that could be +seen. Yet secretly both were conscious that something was on its trial, +and that more was in front of them than a mere journey through the +Rockies. He was an old friend both of herself and her family. She +believed him to be honourable, upright, affectionate. He was of the same +world and tradition as herself, well endowed, a scholar and a gentleman. +He would make a good brother for Philip. And heretofore she had seen him +on ground which had shown him to advantage; either at home or abroad, +during a winter at Rome--a spring at Florence. + +Indeed, as they strolled about Winnipeg, he talked to her incessantly +about persons and incidents connected with the spring of the year +before, when they had both been in Rome. + +"You remember that delicious day at Castel Gandolfo?--on the terrace of +the Villa Barberini? And the expedition to Horace's farm? You recollect +the little girl there--the daughter of the Dutch Minister? She's married +an American--a very good fellow. They've bought an old villa on +Monte Mario." + +And so on, and so on. The dear Italian names rolled out, and the speaker +grew more and more animated and agreeable. + +Only, unfortunately, Elizabeth's attention failed him. A motor car had +been lent them in the hospitable Canadian way; and as they sped through +and about the city, up the business streets, round the park, and the +residential suburb rising along the Assiniboine, as they plunged through +seas of black mud to look at the little old-fashioned Cathedral of St. +John, with its graveyard recalling the earliest days of the settlement, +Lady Merton gradually ceased even to pretend to listen to her companion. + +"They have found some extremely jolly things lately at Porto D'Anzio--a +fine torso--quite Greek." + +"Have they?" said Elizabeth, absently--"Have they?--And to think that in +1870, just a year or two before my father and mother married, there was +nothing here but an outpost in the wilderness!--a few scores of people! +One just _hears_ this country grow." She turned pensively away from the +tombstone of an old Scottish settler in the shady graveyard of St. John. + +"Ah! but what will it grow to?" said Delaine, drily. "Is Winnipeg going +to be interesting?--is it going to _matter_?" + +"Come and look at the Emigration Offices," laughed Elizabeth for answer. + +And he found himself dragged through room after room of the great +building, and standing by while Elizabeth, guided by an official who +seemed to hide a more than Franciscan brotherliness under the aspects of +a canny Scot, and helped by an interpreter, made her way into the groups +of home-seekers crowding round the clerks and counters of the lower +room--English, Americans, Swedes, Dutchmen, Galicians, French Canadians. +Some men, indeed, who were actually hanging over maps, listening to the +directions and information of the officials, were far too busy to talk +to tourists, but there were others who had finished their business, or +were still waiting their turn, and among them, as also among the women, +the little English lady found many willing to talk to her. + +And what courage, what vivacity she threw into the business! Delaine, +who had seen her till now as a person whose natural reserve was rather +displayed than concealed by her light agreeable manner, who had often +indeed had cause to wonder where and what might be the real woman, +followed her from group to group in a silent astonishment. Between these +people--belonging to the primitive earth-life--and herself, there seemed +to be some sudden intuitive sympathy which bewildered him; whether she +talked to some Yankee farmer from the Dakotas, long-limbed, +lantern-jawed, all the moisture dried out of him by hot summers, hard +winters, and long toil, who had come over the border with a pocket full +of money, the proceeds of prairie-farming in a republic, to sink it all +joyfully in a new venture under another flag; or to some +broad-shouldered English youth from her own north country; or to some +hunted Russian from the Steppes, in whose eyes had begun to dawn the +first lights of liberty; or to the dark-faced Italians and Frenchmen, to +whom she chattered in their own tongues. + +An Indian reserve of good land had just been thrown open to settlers. +The room was thronged. But Elizabeth was afraid of no one; and no one +repulsed her. The high official who took them through, lingered over the +process, busy as the morning was, all for the _beaux yeux_ of Elizabeth; +and they left him pondering by what legerdemain he could possibly so +manipulate his engagements that afternoon as to join Lady Merton's +tea-party. + +"Well, that was quite interesting!" said Delaine as they emerged. + +Elizabeth, however, would certainly have detected the perfunctoriness of +the tone, and the hypocrisy of the speech, had she had any thoughts +to spare. + +But her face showed her absorbed. + +"Isn't it _amazing_!" Her tone was quiet, her eyes on the ground. + +"Yet, after all, the world has seen a good many emigrations in its day!" +remarked Delaine, not without irritation. + +She lifted her eyes. + +"Ah--but nothing like this! One hears of how the young nations came down +and peopled the Roman Empire. But that lasted so long. One person--with +one life--could only see a bit of it. And here one sees it _all_--all, +at once!--as a great march--the march of a new people to its home. Fifty +years ago, wolves and bears, and buffaloes--twelve years ago even, the +great movement had not begun--and now, every week, a new town!--the new +nation spreading, spreading over the open land, irresistibly, silently; +no one setting bounds to it, no one knowing what will come of it!" + +She checked herself. Her voice had been subdued, but there was a tremor +in it. Delaine caught her up, rather helplessly. + +"Ah! isn't that the point? What will come of it? Numbers and size aren't +everything. Where is it all tending?" + +She looked up at him, still exalted, still flushed, and said softly, as +though she could not help it, "'On to the bound of the waste--on to the +City of God!'" + +He gazed at her in discomfort. Here was an Elizabeth Merton he had yet +to know. No trace of her in the ordinary life of an English +country house! + +"You _are_ Canadian!" he said with a smile. + +"No, no!" said Elizabeth eagerly, recovering herself, "I am only a +spectator. _We_ see the drama--we feel it--much more than they can who +are in it. At least"--she wavered--"Well!--I have met one man who seems +to feel it!" + +"Your Canadian friend?" + +Elizabeth nodded. + +"He sees the vision--he dreams the dream!" she said brightly. "So few +do. But I think he does. Oh, dear--_dear_!--how time flies! I must go +and see what Philip is after." + +Delaine was left discontented. He had come to press his suit, and he +found a lady preoccupied. Canada, it seemed, was to be his rival! Would +he ever be allowed to get in a word edgewise? + +Was there ever anything so absurd, so disconcerting? He looked forward +gloomily to a dull afternoon, in quest of fat cattle, with a car-full of +unknown Canadians. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +At three o'clock, in the wide Winnipeg station, there gathered on the +platform beside Lady Merton's car a merry and motley group of people. A +Chief Justice from Alberta, one of the Senators for Manitoba, a rich +lumberman from British Columbia, a Toronto manufacturer--owner of the +model farm which the party was to inspect, two or three ladies, among +them a little English girl with fine eyes, whom Philip Gaddesden at once +marked for approval; and a tall, dark-complexioned man with hollow +cheeks, large ears, and a long chin, who was introduced, with particular +emphasis, to Elizabeth by Anderson, as "Mr. Félix Mariette"--Member of +Parliament, apparently, for some constituency in the Province of Quebec. + +The small crowd of persons collected, all eminent in the Canadian world, +and some beyond it, examined their hostess of the afternoon with a +kindly amusement. Elizabeth had sent round letters; Anderson, who was +well known, it appeared, in Winnipeg, had done a good deal of +telephoning. And by the letters and the telephoning this group of busy +people had allowed itself to be gathered; simply because Elizabeth was +her father's daughter, and it was worth while to put such people in the +right way, and to send them home with some rational notions of the +country they had come to see. + +And she, who at home never went out of her way to make a new +acquaintance, was here the centre of the situation, grasping the +identities of all these strangers with wonderful quickness, flitting +about from one to another, making friends with them all, and +constraining Philip to do the same. Anderson followed her closely, +evidently feeling a responsibility for the party only second to her own. + +He found time, however, to whisper to Mariette, as they were all about +to mount the car: + +"Eh bien?" + +"Mais oui--très gracieuse!" said the other, but without a smile, and +with a shrug of the shoulders. _He_ was only there to please Anderson. +What did the aristocratic Englishwoman on tour--with all her little +Jingoisms and Imperialisms about her--matter to him, or he to her? + +While the stream of guests was slowly making its way into the car, while +Yerkes at the further end, resplendent in a buttonhole and a white cap +and apron, was watching the scene, and the special engine, like an +impatient horse, was puffing and hissing to be off, a man, who had +entered the cloak-room of the station to deposit a bundle just as the +car-party arrived, approached the cloak-room door from the inside, and +looked through the glazed upper half. His stealthy movements and his +strange appearance passed unnoticed. There was a noisy emigrant party in +the cloak-room, taking out luggage deposited the night before; they were +absorbed in their own affairs, and in some wrangle with the officials +which involved a good deal of lost temper on both sides. + +The man was old and grey. His face, large-featured and originally comely +in outline, wore the unmistakable look of the outcast. His eyes were +bloodshot, his mouth trembled, so did his limbs as he stood peering by +the door. His clothes were squalid, and both they and his person +diffused the odours of the drinking bar from which he had just come. The +porter in charge of the cloak-room had run a hostile eye over him as he +deposited his bundle. But now no one observed him; while he, gathered up +and concentrated, like some old wolf upon a trail, followed every +movement of the party entering the Gaddesden car. + +George Anderson and his French Canadian friend left the platform last. +As Anderson reached the door of the car he turned back to speak to +Mariette, and his face and figure were clearly visible to the watcher +behind the barred cloak-room door. A gleam of savage excitement passed +over the old man's face; his limbs trembled more violently. + +Through the side windows of the car the party could be seen distributing +themselves over the comfortable seats, laughing and talking in groups. +In the dining-room, the white tablecloth spread for tea, with the china +and silver upon it, made a pleasant show. And now two high officials of +the railway came hurrying up, one to shake hands with Lady Merton and +see that all was right, the other to accompany the party. + +Elizabeth Merton came out in her white dress, and leant over the +railing, talking, with smiles, to the official left behind. He raised +his hat, the car moved slowly off, and in the group immediately behind +Lady Merton the handsome face and thick fair hair of George Anderson +showed conspicuous as long as the special train remained in sight. + +The old man raised himself and noiselessly went out upon the platform. +Outside the station he fell in with a younger man, who had been +apparently waiting for him; a strong, picturesque fellow, with the skin +and countenance of a half-breed. + +"Well?" said the younger, impatiently. "Thought you was goin' to take a +bunk there." + +"Couldn't get out before. It's all right." + +"Don't care if it is," said the other sulkily. "Don't care a damn button +not for you nor anythin' you're after! But you give me my two dollars +sharp, and don't keep me another half-hour waitin'. That's what I +reckoned for, an' I'm goin' to have it." He held out his hand. + +The old man fumbled slowly in an inner pocket of his filthy overcoat. + +"You say the car's going on to-night?" + +"It is, old bloke, and Mr. George Anderson same train--number +ninety-seven--as ever is. Car shunted at Calgary to-morrow night. So +none of your nonsense--fork out! I had a lot o' trouble gettin' you +the tip." + +The old man put some silver into his palm with shaking fingers. The +youth, who was a bartender from a small saloon in the neighbourhood of +the station, looked at him with contempt. + +"Wonder when you was sober last? Think you'd better clean yourself a +bit, or they'll not let you on the train." + +"Who told you I wanted to go on the train?" said the old man sharply. +"I'm staying at Winnipeg." + +"Oh! you are, are you?" said the other mockingly. "We shouldn't cry our +eyes out if you _was_ sayin' good-bye. Ta-ta!" And with the dollars in +his hand, head downwards, he went off like the wind. + +The old man waited till the lad was out of sight, then went back into +the station and bought an emigrant ticket to Calgary for the night +train. He emerged again, and walked up the main street of Winnipeg, +which on this bright afternoon was crowded with people and traffic. He +passed the door of a solicitor's office, where a small sum of money, the +proceeds of a legacy, had been paid him the day before, and he finally +made his way into the free library of Winnipeg, and took down a file of +the _Winnipeg Chronicle_. + +He turned some pages laboriously, yet not vaguely. His eyes were dim and +his hands palsied, but he knew what he was looking for. He found it at +last, and sat pondering it--the paragraph which, when he had hit upon it +by chance in the same place twenty-four hours earlier, had changed the +whole current of his thoughts. + +"Donaldminster, Sask., May 6th.--We are delighted to hear from this +prosperous and go-ahead town that, with regard to the vacant seat the +Liberals of the city have secured as a candidate Mr. George Anderson, +who achieved such an important success last year for the C.P.R. by his +settlement on their behalf of the dangerous strike which had arisen in +the Rocky Mountains section of the line, and which threatened not only +to affect all the construction camps in the district but to spread to +the railway workers proper and to the whole Winnipeg section. Mr. +Anderson seems to have a remarkable hold on the railway men, and he is +besides a speaker of great force. He is said to have addressed +twenty-three meetings, and to have scarcely eaten or slept for a +fortnight. He was shrewd and fair in negotiation, as well as eloquent in +speech. The result was an amicable settlement, satisfactory to all +parties. And the farmers of the West owe Mr. Anderson a good deal. So +does the C.P.R. For if the strike had broken out last October, just as +the movement of the fall crops eastward was at its height, the farmers +and the railway, and Canada in general would have been at its mercy. We +wish Mr. Anderson a prosperous election (it is said, indeed, that he is +not to be opposed) and every success in his political career. He is, we +believe, Canadian born--sprung from a farm in Manitoba--so that he has +grown up with the Northwest, and shares all its hopes and ambitions." + +The old man, with both elbows on the table, crouched over the +newspaper, incoherent pictures of the past coursing through his mind, +which was still dazed and stupid from the drink of the night before. + +Meanwhile, the special train sped along the noble Red River and out into +the country. All over the prairie the wheat was up in a smooth green +carpet, broken here and there by the fields of timothy and clover, or +the patches of summer fallow, or the white homestead buildings. The June +sun shone down upon the teeming earth, and a mirage, born of sun and +moisture, spread along the edge of the horizon, so that Elizabeth, the +lake-lover, could only imagine in her bewilderment that Lake Winnipeg or +Lake Manitoba had come dancing south and east to meet her, so clearly +did the houses and trees, far away behind them, and on either side, seem +to be standing at the edge of blue water, in which the white clouds +overhead were mirrored, and reed-beds stretched along the shore. But as +the train receded, the mirage followed them; the dream-water lapped up +the trees and the fields, and even the line they had just passed over +seemed to be standing in water. + +How foreign to an English eye was the flat, hedgeless landscape! with +its vast satin-smooth fields of bluish-green wheat; its farmhouses with +their ploughed fireguards and shelter-belts of young trees; its rare +villages, each stretching in one long straggling line of wooden houses +along the level earth; its scattered, treeless lakes, from which the +duck rose as the train passed! Was it this mere foreignness, this +likeness in difference, that made it strike so sharply, with such a +pleasant pungency on Elizabeth's senses? Or was it something else--some +perception of an opening future, not only for Canada but for herself, +mingling with the broad light, the keen air, the lovely strangeness of +the scene? + +Yet she scarcely spoke to Arthur Delaine, with whom one might have +supposed this hidden feeling connected. She was indeed aware of him all +the time. She watched him secretly; watching herself, too, in the +characteristic modern way. But outwardly she was absorbed in talking +with the guests. + +The Chief Justice, roundly modelled, with a pink ball of a face set in +white hair, had been half a century in Canada, and had watched the +Northwest grow from babyhood. He had passed his seventieth year, but +Elizabeth noticed in the old men of Canada a strained expectancy, a +buoyant hope, scarcely inferior to that of the younger generation. There +was in Sir Michael's talk no hint of a Nunc Dimittis; rather a +passionate regret that life was ebbing, and the veil falling over a +national spectacle so enthralling, so dramatic. + +"Before this century is out we shall be a people of eighty millions, and +within measurable time this plain of a thousand miles from here to the +Rockies will be as thickly peopled as the plain of Lombardy." + +"Well, and what then?" said a harsh voice in a French accent, +interrupting the Chief Justice. + +Arthur Delaine's face, turning towards the speaker, suddenly lightened, +as though its owner said, "Ah! precisely." + +"The plain of Lombardy is not a Paradise," continued Mariette, with a +laugh that had in it a touch of impatience. + +"Not far off it," murmured Delaine, as he looked out on the vast field +of wheat they were passing--a field two miles long, flat and green and +bare as a billiard-table--and remembered the chestnuts and the looping +vines, the patches of silky corn and spiky maize, and all the +interlacing richness and broidering of the Italian plain. His soul +rebelled against this naked new earth, and its bare new fortunes. All +very well for those who must live in it and make it. "Yet is there +better than it!"--lands steeped in a magic that has been woven for them +by the mere life of immemorial generations. + +He murmured this to Elizabeth, who smiled. + +"Their shroud?" she said, to tease him. "But Canada has on her wedding +garment!" + +Again he asked himself what had come to her. She looked years younger +than when he had parted from her in England. The delicious thought shot +through him that his advent might have something to do with it. + +He stooped towards her. + +"Willy-nilly, your friends must like Canada!" he said, in her ear; "if +it makes you so happy." + +He had no art of compliment, but the words were simple and sincere, and +Elizabeth grew suddenly rosy, to her own great annoyance. Before she +could reply, however, the Chief Justice had insisted on bringing her +back into the general conversation. + +"Come and keep the peace, Lady Merton! Here is my friend Mariette +playing the devil's advocate as usual. Anderson tells me you are +inclined to think well of us; so perhaps you ought to hear it." + +Mariette smiled and bowed a trifle sombrely. He was plain and gaunt, but +he had the air of a _grand seigneur_, and was in fact a member of one of +the old seigneurial families of Quebec. + +"I have been enquiring of Sir Michael, madam, whether he is quite happy +in his mind as to these Yankees that are now pouring into the new +provinces. He, like everyone else, prophesies great things for Canada; +but suppose it is an American Canada?" + +"Let them come," said Anderson, with a touch of scorn. "Excellent stuff! +We can absorb them. We are doing it fast." + +"Can you? They are pouring all over the new districts as fast as the +survey is completed and the railways planned. They bring capital, which +your Englishman doesn't. They bring knowledge of the prairie and the +climate, which your Englishmen haven't got. As for capital, America is +doing everything; financing the railways, the mines, buying up the +lands, and leasing the forests. British Columbia is only nominally +yours; American capital and business have got their grip firm on the +very vitals of the province." + +"Perfectly true!"--put in the lumberman from Vancouver--"They have +three-fourths of the forests in their hands." + +"No matter!" said Anderson, kindling. "There was a moment of +danger--twenty years ago. It is gone. Canada will no more be American +than she will be Catholic--with apologies to Mariette. These Yankees +come in--they turn Englishmen in six months--they celebrate Dominion Day +on the first of July, and Independence Day, for old sake's sake, on the +fourth; and their children will be as loyal as Toronto." + +"Aye, and as dull!" said Mariette fiercely. + +The conversation dissolved in protesting laughter. The Chief Justice, +Anderson, and the lumberman fell upon another subject. Philip and the +pretty English girl were flirting on the platform outside, Mariette +dropped into a seat beside Elizabeth. + +"You know my friend, Mr. Anderson, madam?" + +"I made acquaintance with him on the journey yesterday. He has been most +kind to us." + +"He is a very remarkable man. When he gets into the House, he will be +heard of. He will perhaps make his mark on Canada." + +"You and he are old friends?" + +"Since our student days. I was of course at the French College--and he +at McGill. But we saw a great deal of each other. He used to come home +with me in his holidays." + +"He told me something of his early life." + +"Did he? It is a sad history, and I fear we--my family, that is, who are +so attached to him--have only made it sadder. Three years ago he was +engaged to my sister. Then the Archbishop forbade mixed marriages. My +sister broke it off, and now she is a nun in the Ursuline Convent +at Quebec." + +"Oh, poor things!" cried Elizabeth, her eye on Anderson's distant face. + +"My sister is quite happy," said Mariette sharply. "She did her duty. +But my poor friend suffered. However, now he has got over it. And I hope +he will marry. He is very dear to me, though we have not a single +opinion in the world in common." + +Elizabeth kept him talking. The picture of Anderson drawn for her by the +admiring but always critical affection of his friend, touched and +stirred her. His influence at college, the efforts by which he had +placed his brothers in the world, the sensitive and generous temperament +which had won him friends among the French Canadian students, he +remaining all the time English of the English; the tendency to +melancholy--a personal and private melancholy--which mingled in him with +a passionate enthusiasm for Canada, and Canada's future; Mariette drew +these things for her, in a stately yet pungent French that affected her +strangely, as though the French of Saint Simon--or something like +it--breathed again from a Canadian mouth. Anderson meanwhile was +standing outside with the Chief Justice. She threw a glance at him now +and then, wondering about his love affair. Had he really got over +it?--or was that M. Mariette's delusion? She liked, on the contrary, to +think of him as constant and broken-hearted! + + * * * * * + +The car stopped, as it seemed, on the green prairie, thirty miles from +Winnipeg. Elizabeth was given up to the owner of the great farm--one of +the rich men of Canada for whom experiment in the public interest +becomes a passion; and Anderson walked on her other hand. + +Delaine endured a wearisome half-hour. He got no speech with Elizabeth, +and prize cattle were his abomination. When the half-hour was done, he +slipped away, unnoticed, from the party. He had marked a small lake or +"slough" at the rear of the house, with wide reed-beds and a clump of +cottonwood. He betook himself to the cottonwood, took out his pocket +Homer and a notebook, and fell to his task. He was in the +thirteenth book: + +[Greek: ôs d hot anêr dorpoio lilaietai, ô te pauêmar neion an helkêton +boe oinope pêkton arotron] + +"As when a man longeth for supper, for whom, the livelong day, two +wine-coloured oxen have dragged the fitted plough through the fallow, +and joyful to such an one is the going down of the sun that sends him to +his meal, for his knees tremble as he goes--so welcome to Odysseus was +the setting of the sun": ... + +He lost himself in familiar joy--the joy of the Greek itself, of the +images of the Greek life. He walked with the Greek ploughman, he smelt +the Greek earth, his thoughts caressed the dark oxen under the yoke. +These for him had savour and delight; the wide Canadian fields had none. + +Philip Gaddesden meanwhile could not be induced to leave the car. While +the others were going through the splendid stables and cowsheds, kept +like a queen's parlour, he and the pretty girl were playing at +bob-cherry in the saloon, to the scandal of Yerkes, who, with the honour +of the car and the C.P.R. and Canada itself on his shoulders, could not +bear that any of his charges should shuffle out of the main item in the +official programme. + +But Elizabeth, as before, saw everything transfigured; the splendid +Shire horses; the famous bull, progenitor of a coming race; the sheds +full of glistening cows and mottled calves. These smooth, sleek +creatures, housed there for the profit of Canada and her farm life, +seemed to Elizabeth no less poetic than the cattle of Helios to Delaine. +She loved the horses, and the patient, sweet-breathed kine; she found +even a sympathetic mind for the pigs. + +Presently when her host, the owner, left her to explain some of his +experiments to the rest of the party, she fell to Anderson alone. And as +she strolled at his side, Anderson found the June afternoon pass with +extraordinary rapidity. Yet he was not really as forthcoming or as frank +as he had been the day before. The more he liked his companion, the more +he was conscious of differences between them which his pride +exaggerated. He himself had never crossed the Atlantic; but he +understood that she and her people were "swells"--well-born in the +English sense, and rich. Secretly he credited them with those defects of +English society of which the New World talks--its vulgar standards and +prejudices. There was not a sign of them certainly in Lady Merton's +conversation. But it is easy to be gracious in a new country; and the +brother was sometimes inclined to give himself airs. Anderson drew in +his tentacles a little; ready indeed to be wroth with himself that he +had talked so much of his own affairs to this little lady the day +before. What possible interest could she have taken in them! + +All the same, he could not tear himself from her side. Whenever Delaine +left his seat by the lake, and strolled round the corner of the wood to +reconnoitre, the result was always the same. If Anderson and Lady +Merton were in sight at all, near or far, they were together. He +returned, disconsolate, to Homer and the reeds. + +As they went back to Winnipeg, some chance word revealed to Elizabeth +that Anderson also was taking the night train for Calgary. + +"Oh! then to-morrow you will come and talk to us!" cried Elizabeth, +delighted. + +Her cordial look, the pretty gesture of her head, evoked in Anderson a +start of pleasure. He was not, however, the only spectator of them. +Arthur Delaine, standing by, thought for the first time in his life that +Elizabeth's manner was really a little excessive. + +The car left Winnipeg that night for the Rockies. An old man, in a +crowded emigrant car, with a bundle under his arm, watched the arrival +of the Gaddesden party. He saw Anderson accost them on the platform, and +then make his way to his own coach just ahead of them. + +The train sped westwards through the Manitoba farms and villages. +Anderson slept intermittently, haunted by various important affairs that +were on his mind, and by recollections of the afternoon. Meanwhile, in +the front of the train, the paragraph from the _Winnipeg Chronicle_ lay +carefully folded in an old tramp's waistcoat pocket. + + + +CHAPTER V + +"I say, Elizabeth, you're not going to sit out there all day, and get +your death of cold? Why don't you come in and read a novel like a +sensible woman?" + +"Because I can read a novel at home--and I can't see Canada." + +"See Canada! What is there to see?" The youth with the scornful voice +came to lean against the doorway beside her. "A patch of corn--miles and +miles of some withered stuff that calls itself grass, all of it as flat +as your hand--oh! and, by Jove! a little brown fellow--gopher, is that +their silly name?--scootling along the line. Go it, young 'un!" Philip +shied the round end of a biscuit tin after the disappearing brown thing. +"A boggy lake with a kind of salt fringe--unhealthy and horrid and +beastly--a wretched farm building--et cetera, et cetera!" + +"Oh! look there, Philip--here is a school!" + +Elizabeth bent forward eagerly. On the bare prairie stood a small white +house, like the house that children draw on their slates: a chimney in +the middle, a door, a window on either side. Outside, about twenty +children playing and dancing. Inside, through the wide-open doorway a +vision of desks and a few bending heads. + +Philip's patience was put to it. Had she supposed that children went +without schools in Canada? + +But she took no heed of him. + +"Look how lovely the children are, and how happy! What'll Canada be when +they are old? And not another sign of habitation anywhere--nothing--but +the little house--on the bare wide earth! And there they dance, as +though the world belonged to them. So it does!" + +"And my sister to a lunatic asylum!" said Philip, exasperated. "I say, +why doesn't that man Anderson come and see us?" + +"He promised to come in and lunch." + +"He's an awfully decent kind of fellow," said the boy warmly. + +Elizabeth opened her eyes. + +"I didn't know you had taken any notice of him, Philip." + +"No more I did," was the candid reply. "But did you see what he brought +me this morning?" He pointed to the seat behind him, littered with +novels, which Elizabeth recognized as new additions to their travelling +store. "He begged or borrowed them somewhere from his friends or people +in the hotel; told me frankly he knew I should be bored to-day, and +might want them. Rather 'cute of him, wasn't it?" + +Elizabeth was touched. Philip had certainly shown rather scant civility +to Mr. Anderson, and this trait of thoughtfulness for a sickly and +capricious traveller appealed to her. + +"I suppose Delaine will be here directly?" Philip went on. + +"I suppose so." + +Philip let himself down into the seat beside her. + +"Look here, Elizabeth," lowering his voice; "I don't think Delaine is +any more excited about Canada than I am. He told me last night he +thought the country about Winnipeg perfectly hideous." + +"_Oh_!" cried Elizabeth, as though someone had flipped her. + +"You'll have to pay him for this journey, Elizabeth. Why did you ask him +to come?" + +"I _didn't_ ask him, Philip. He asked himself." + +"Ah! but you let him come," said the youth shrewdly. "I think, +Elizabeth, you're not behaving quite nicely." + +"How am I not behaving nicely?" + +"Well, you don't pay any attention to him. Do you know what he was doing +while you were looking at the cows yesterday?" + +Elizabeth reluctantly confessed that she had no idea. + +"Well, he was sitting by a lake--a kind of swamp--at the back of the +house, reading a book." Philip went off into a fit of laughter. + +"Poor Mr. Delaine!" cried Elizabeth, though she too laughed. "It was +probably Greek," she added pensively. + +"Well, that's funnier still. You know, Elizabeth, he could read Greek at +home. It's because you were neglecting him." + +"Don't rub it in, Philip," said Elizabeth, flushing. Then she moved up +to him and laid a coaxing hand on his arm. "Do you know that I have been +awake half the night?" + +"All along of Delaine? Shall I tell him?" + +"Philip, I just want you to be a dear, and hold your tongue," said Lady +Merton entreatingly. "When there's anything to tell, I'll tell you. And +if I have--" + +"Have what?" + +"Behaved like a fool, you'll have to stand by me." An expression of pain +passed over her face. + +"Oh, I'll stand by you. I don't know that I want Mr. Arthur for an extra +bear-leader, if that's what you mean. You and mother are quite enough. +Hullo! Here he is." + +A little later Delaine and Elizabeth were sitting side by side on the +garden chairs, four of which could just be fitted into the little railed +platform at the rear of the car. Elizabeth was making herself agreeable, +and doing it, for a time, with energy. Nothing also could have been more +energetic than Delaine's attempts to meet her. He had been studying +Baedeker, and he made intelligent travellers' remarks on the subject of +Southern Saskatchewan. He discussed the American "trek" into the +province from the adjoining States. He understood the new public +buildings of Regina were to be really fine, only to be surpassed by +those at Edmonton. He admired the effects of light and shadow on the +wide expanse; and noticed the peculiarities of the alkaline lakes. + +Meanwhile, as he became more expansive, Elizabeth contracted. One would +have thought soon that Canada had ceased to interest her at all. She led +him slyly on to other topics, and presently the real Arthur Delaine +emerged. Had she heard of the most recent Etruscan excavations at +Grosseto? Wonderful! A whole host of new clues! Boni--Lanciani--the +whole learned world in commotion. A fragment of what might very possibly +turn out to be a bi-lingual inscription was the last find. Were we at +last on the brink of solving the old, the eternal enigma? + +He threw himself back in his chair, transformed once more into the +talkative, agreeable person that Europe knew. His black and grizzled +hair, falling perpetually forward in strong waves, made a fine frame for +his grey eyes and large, well-cut features. He had a slight stammer, +which increased when he was animated, and a trick of forever pushing +back the troublesome front locks of hair. + +Elizabeth listened for a long, long time, and at last--could have cried +like a baby because she was missing so much! There was a chance, she +knew, all along this portion of the line, of seeing antelope and +coyotes, if only one kept one's eyes open; not to speak of the +gophers--enchanting little fellows, quite new to such travellers as +she--who seemed to choose the very railway line itself, by preference, +for their burrowings and their social gatherings. Then, as she saw, the +wheat country was nearly done; a great change was in progress; her +curiosity sprang to meet it. Droves of horses and cattle began to appear +at rare intervals on the vast expanse. No white, tree-sheltered farms +here, like the farms in Manitoba; but scattered at long distances, near +the railway or on the horizon, the first primitive dwellings of the new +settlers--the rude "shack" of the first year--beginnings of +villages--sketches of towns. + +"I have always thought the Etruscan problem the most fascinating in the +whole world," cried Delaine, with pleasant enthusiasm. "When you +consider all its bearings, linguistic and historical--" + +"Oh! _do_ you see," exclaimed Elizabeth, pointing--"_do_ you see all +those lines and posts, far out to the horizon? Do you know that all +these lonely farms are connected with each other and the railway by +_telephones_? Mr. Anderson told me so; that some farmers actually make +their fences into telephone lines, and that from that little hut over +there you can speak to Montreal when you please? And just before I left +London I was staying in a big country house, thirty miles from Hyde Park +Corner, and you couldn't telephone to London except by driving five +miles to the nearest town!" + +"I wonder why that should strike you so much--the telephones, I mean?" + +Delaine's tone was stiff. He had thrown himself back in his chair with +folded arms, and a slight look of patience. "After all, you know, it may +only be one dull person telephoning to another dull person--on subjects +that don't matter!" + +Elizabeth laughed and coloured. + +"Oh! it isn't telephones in themselves. It's--" She hesitated, and +began again, trying to express herself. "When one thinks of all the +haphazard of history--how nations have tumbled up, or been dragged up, +through centuries of blind horror and mistake, how wonderful to see a +nation made consciously!--before your eyes--by science and +intelligence--everything thought of, everything foreseen! First of all, +this wonderful railway, driven across these deserts, against opposition, +against unbelief, by a handful of men, who risked everything, and +have--perhaps--changed the face of the world!" + +She stopped smiling. In truth, her new capacity for dithyramb was no +less surprising to herself than to Delaine. + +"I return to my point"--he made it not without tartness--"will the new +men be adequate to the new state?" + +"Won't they?" He fancied a certain pride in her bearing. "They explained +to me the other day at Winnipeg what the Government do for the +emigrants--how they guide and help them--take care of them in sickness +and in trouble, through the first years--protect them, really, even from +themselves. And one thinks how Governments have taxed, and tortured, and +robbed, and fleeced--Oh, surely, surely, the world improves!" She +clasped her hands tightly on her knee, as though trying by the physical +action to restrain the feeling within. "And to see here the actual +foundations of a great state laid under your eyes, deep and strong, by +men who know what it is they are doing--to see history begun on a blank +page, by men who know what they are writing--isn't it wonderful, +_wonderful_!" + +"Dear lady!" said Delaine, smiling, "America has been dealing with +emigrants for generations; and there are people who say that corruption +is rife in Canada." + +But Elizabeth would not be quenched. + +"We come after America--we climb on her great shoulders to see the way. +But is there anything in America to equal the suddenness of this? Twelve +years ago even--in all this Northwest--practically nothing. And then God +said: 'Let there be a nation!'--and there was a nation--in a night and a +morning." She waved her hand towards the great expanse of prairie. "And +as for corruption--" + +"Well?" He waited maliciously. + +"There is no great brew without a scum," she said laughing. "But find me +a brew anywhere in the world, of such power, with so little." + +"Mr. Anderson would, I think, be pleased with you," said Delaine, drily. + +Elizabeth frowned a little. + +"Do you think I learnt it from him? I assure you he never rhapsodises." + +"No; but he gives you the material for rhapsodies." + +"And why not?" said Elizabeth indignantly. "If he didn't love the +country and believe in it he wouldn't be going into its public life. You +can feel that he is Canadian through and through." + +"A farmer's son, I think, from Manitoba?" + +"Yes." Elizabeth's tone was a little defensive. + +"Will you not sometimes--if you watch his career--regret that, with his +ability, he has not the environment--and the audience--of the +Old World?" + +"No, never! He will be one of the shapers of the new." + +Delaine looked at her with a certain passion. + +"All very well, but _you_ don't belong to it. We can't spare you from +the old." + +"Oh, as for me, I'm full of vicious and corrupt habits!" put in +Elizabeth hurriedly. "I am not nearly good enough for the new!" + +"Thank goodness for that!" said Delaine fervently, and, bending forward, +he tried to see her face. But Elizabeth did not allow it. She could not +help flushing; but as she bent over the side of the platform looking +ahead, she announced in her gayest voice that there was a town to be +seen, and it was probably Regina. + +The station at Regina, when they steamed into it, was crowded with folk, +and gay with flags. Anderson, after a conversation with the +station-master, came to the car to say that the Governor-General, Lord +Wrekin, who had been addressing a meeting at Regina, was expected +immediately, to take the East-bound train; which was indeed already +lying, with its steam up, on the further side of the station, the +Viceregal car in its rear. + +"But there are complications. Look there!" + +He pointed to a procession coming along the platform. Six men bore a +coffin covered with white flowers. Behind it came persons in black, a +group of men, and one woman; then others, mostly young men, also in +mourning, and bare-headed. + +As the procession passed the car, Anderson and Delaine uncovered. + +Elizabeth turned a questioning look on Anderson. + +"A young man from Ontario," he explained, "quite a lad. He had come here +out West to a farm--to work his way--a good, harmless little fellow--the +son of a widow. A week ago a vicious horse kicked him in the stable. He +died yesterday morning. They are taking him back to Ontario to be +buried. The friends of his chapel subscribed to do it, and they brought +his mother here to nurse him. She arrived just in time. That is she." + +He pointed to the bowed figure, hidden in a long crape veil. Elizabeth's +eyes filled. + +"But it comes awkwardly," Anderson went on, looking back along the +platform--"for the Governor-General is expected this very moment. The +funeral ought to have been here half an hour ago. They seem to have been +delayed. Ah! here he is!" + +"Elizabeth!--his Excellency!" cried Philip, emerging from the car. + +"Hush!" Elizabeth put her finger to her lip. The young man looked at the +funeral procession in astonishment, which was just reaching the side of +the empty van on the East-bound train which was waiting, with wide-open +doors, to receive the body. The bearers let down the coffin gently to +the ground, and stood waiting in hesitation. But there were no railway +employés to help them. A flurried station-master and his staff were +receiving the official party. Suddenly someone started the revival hymn, +"Shall We Gather at the River?" It was taken up vigorously by the thirty +or forty young men who had followed the coffin, and their voices, +rising and falling in a familiar lilting melody, filled the station: + + Yes, we'll gather at the river, + The beautiful, beautiful river-- + Gather with the saints at the river, + That flows by the throne of God! + +Elizabeth looked towards the entrance of the station. A tall and slender +man had just stepped on to the platform. It was the Governor-General, +with a small staff behind him. The staff and the station officials stood +hat in hand. A few English tourists from the West-bound train hurried +up; the men uncovered, the ladies curtsied. A group of settlers' wives +newly arrived from Minnesota, who were standing near the entrance, +watched the arrival with curiosity. Lord Wrekin, seeing women in his +path, saluted them; and they replied with a friendly and democratic nod. +Then suddenly the Governor-General heard the singing, and perceived the +black distant crowd. He inquired of the persons near him, and then +passed on through the groups which had begun to gather round himself, +raising his hand for silence. The passengers of the West-bound train had +by now mostly descended, and pressed after him. Bare-headed, he stood +behind the mourners while the hymn proceeded, and the coffin was lifted +and placed in the car with the wreaths round it. The mother clung a +moment to the side of the door, unconsciously resisting those who tried +to lead her away. The kind grey eyes of the Governor-General rested upon +her, but he made no effort to approach or speak to her. Only his +stillness kept the crowd still. + +Elizabeth at her window watched the scene--the tall figure of his +Excellency--the bowed woman--the throng of officials and of mourners. +Over the head of the Governor-General a couple of flags swelled in a +light breeze--the Union Jack and the Maple Leaf; beyond the heads of the +crowd there was a distant glimpse of the barracks of the Mounted Police; +and then boundless prairie and floating cloud. + +At last the mother yielded, and was led to the carriage behind the +coffin. Gently, with bent head, Lord Wrekin made his way to her. But no +one heard what passed between them. Then, silently, the funeral crowd +dispersed, and another crowd--of officials and business men--claimed the +Governor-General. Standing in its midst, he turned for a moment to scan +the West-bound train. + +"Ah, Lady Merton!" He had perceived the car and Elizabeth's face at the +window, and he hastened across to speak to her. They were old friends in +England, and they had already met in Ottawa. + +"So I find you on your travels! Well?" + +His look, gay and vivacious as a boy's, interrogated hers. Elizabeth +stammered a few words in praise of Canada. But her eyes were still wet, +and the Governor-General perceived it. + +"That was touching?" he said. "To die in your teens in this +country!--just as the curtain is up and the play begins--hard! Hullo, +Anderson!" + +The great man extended a cordial hand, chaffed Philip a little, gave +Lady Merton some hurried but very precise directions as to what she was +to see--and whom--at Vancouver and Pretoria. "You must see So-and-so and +So-and-so--great friends of mine. D----'ll tell you all about the +lumbering. Get somebody to show you the Chinese quarter. And there's a +splendid old fellow--a C.P.R. man--did some of the prospecting for the +railway up North, toward the Yellowhead. Never heard such tales; I could +have sat up all night." He hastily scribbled a name on a card and gave +it to Elizabeth. "Good-bye--good-bye!" + +He hastened off, but they saw him standing a few moments longer on the +platform, the centre of a group of provincial politicians, farmers, +railway superintendents, and others--his hat on the back of his head, +his pleasant laugh ringing every now and then above the clatter of +talk. Then came departure, and at the last moment he jumped into his +carriage, talking and talked to, almost till it had left the platform. + +Anderson hailed a farming acquaintance. + +"Well? What has the Governor-General been doing?" + +"Speaking at a Farmers' Conference. Awful shindy yesterday!--between the +farmers and the millers. Row about the elevators. The farmers want the +Dominion to own 'em--vow they're cheated and bullied, and all the rest +of it. Row about the railway, too. Shortage of cars; you know the old +story. A regular wasp's nest, the whole thing! Well, the +Governor-General came this morning, and everything's blown over! Can't +remember what he said, but we're all sure somebody's going to do +something. Hope you know how he does it!--I don't." + +Anderson laughed as he sat down beside Elizabeth, and the train began to +move. + +"We seem to send you the right men!" she said, smiling--with a little +English conceit that became her. + +The train left the station. As it did so, an old man in the first +emigrant car, who, during the wait at Regina, had appeared to be asleep +in a corner, with a battered slouch hat drawn down over his eyes and +face, stealthily moved to the window, and looked back upon the now +empty platform. + +Some hours later Anderson was still sitting beside Elizabeth. They were +in Southern Alberta. The June day had darkened. And for the first time +Elizabeth felt the chill and loneliness of the prairies, where as yet +she had only felt their exhilaration. A fierce wind was sweeping over +the boundless land, with showers in its train. The signs of habitation +became scantier, the farms fewer. Bunches of horses and herds of cattle +widely scattered over the endless grassy plains--the brown lines of the +ploughed fire-guards running beside the railway--the bents of winter +grass, white in the storm-light, bleaching the rolling surface of the +ground, till the darkness of some cloud-shadow absorbed them; these +things breathed--of a sudden--wildness and desolation. It seemed as +though man could no longer cope with the mere vastness of the earth--an +earth without rivers or trees, too visibly naked and measureless. + +"At last I am afraid of it!" said Elizabeth, shivering in her fur coat, +with a little motion of her hand toward the plain. "And what must it be +in winter!" + +Anderson laughed. + +"The winter is much milder here than in Manitoba! Radiant sunshine day +after day--and the warm chinook-wind. And it is precisely here that the +railway lands are selling at a higher price for the moment than anywhere +else, and that settlers are rushing in. Look there!" + +Elizabeth peered through the gloom, and saw the gleam of water. The +train ran along beside it for a minute or two, then the gathering +darkness seemed to swallow it up. + +"A river?" + +"No, a canal, fed from the Bow River--far ahead of us. We are in the +irrigation belt--and in the next few years thousands of people will +settle here. Give the land water--the wheat follows! South and North, +even now, the wheat is spreading and driving out the ranchers. +Irrigation is the secret. We are mastering it! And you thought"--he +looked at her with amusement and a kind of triumph--"that the country +had mastered us?" + +There was something in his voice and eyes, as though not he spoke, but a +nation through him. "Splendid!" was the word that rose in Elizabeth's +mind; and a thrill ran with it. + +The gloom of the afternoon deepened. The showers increased. But +Elizabeth could not be prevailed upon to go in. In the car Delaine and +Philip were playing dominoes, in despair of anything more amusing. +Yerkes was giving his great mind to the dinner which was to be the +consolation of Philip's day. + +Meanwhile Elizabeth kept Anderson talking. That was her great gift. She +was the best of listeners. Thus led on he could not help himself, any +more than he had been able to help himself on the afternoon of the +sink-hole. He had meant to hold himself strictly in hand with this too +attractive Englishwoman. On the contrary, he had never yet poured out so +frankly to mortal ear the inmost dreams and hopes which fill the ablest +minds of Canada--dreams half imagination, half science; and hopes which, +yesterday romance, become reality to-morrow. + +He showed her, for instance, the great Government farms as they passed +them, standing white and trim upon the prairie, and bade her think of +the busy brains at work there--magicians conjuring new wheats that will +ripen before the earliest frosts, and so draw onward the warm tide of +human life over vast regions now desolate; or trees that will stand firm +against the prairie winds, and in the centuries to come turn this bare +and boundless earth, this sea-floor of a primeval ocean, which is now +Western Canada, into a garden of the Lord. Or from the epic of the soil, +he would slip on to the human epic bound up with it--tale after tale of +life in the ranching country, and of the emigration now pouring into +Alberta--witched out of him by this delicately eager face, these lovely +listening eyes. And here, in spite of his blunt, simple speech, came out +the deeper notes of feeling, feeling richly steeped in those "mortal +things"--earthy, tender, humorous, or terrible--which make up +human fate. + +Had he talked like this to the Catholic girl in Quebec? And yet she had +renounced him? She had never loved him, of course! To love this man +would be to cleave to him. + +Once, in a lifting of the shadows of the prairie, Elizabeth saw a group +of antelope standing only a few hundred yards from the train, tranquilly +indifferent, their branching horns clear in a pallid ray of light; and +once a prairie-wolf, solitary and motionless; and once, as the train +moved off after a stoppage, an old badger leisurely shambling off the +line itself. And once, too, amid a driving storm-shower, and what seemed +to her unbroken formless solitudes, suddenly, a tent by the railway +side, and the blaze of a fire; and as the train slowly passed, three +men--lads rather--emerging to laugh and beckon to it. The tent, the +fire, the gay challenge of the young faces and the English voices, +ringed by darkness and wild weather, brought the tears back to +Elizabeth's eyes, she scarcely knew why. + +"Settlers, in their first year," said Anderson, smiling, as he waved +back again. + +But, to Elizabeth, it seemed a parable of the new Canada. + +An hour later, amid a lightening of the clouds over the West, that +spread a watery gold over the prairie, Anderson sprang to his feet. + +"The Rockies!" + +And there, a hundred miles away, peering over the edge of the land, ran +from north to south a vast chain of snow peaks, and Elizabeth saw at +last that even the prairies have an end. + +The car was shunted at Calgary, in order that its occupants might enjoy +a peaceful night. When she found herself alone in her tiny room, +Elizabeth stood for a while before her reflection in the glass. Her eyes +were frowning and distressed; her cheeks glowed. Arthur Delaine, her old +friend, had bade her a cold good night, and she knew well enough +that--from him--she deserved it. "Yet I gave him the whole morning," she +pleaded with herself. "I did my best. But oh, why, why did I ever let +him come!" + +And even in the comparative quiet of the car at rest, she could not +sleep; so quickened were all her pulses, and so vivid the memories +of the day. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +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. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Oh! the freshness of the morning on Lake Louise! + +It was barely eight o'clock, yet Elizabeth Merton had already taken her +coffee on the hotel verandah, and was out wandering by herself. The +hotel, which is nearly six thousand feet above the sea, had only just +been opened for its summer guests, and Elizabeth and her party were its +first inmates. Anderson indeed had arranged their coming, and was to +have brought them hither himself. But on the night of the party's return +to Laggan he had been hastily summoned by telegraph to a consultation of +engineers on a difficult matter of railway grading in the Kootenay +district. Delaine, knocking at his door in the morning, had found him +flown. A note for Lady Merton explained his flight, gave all directions +for the drive to Lake Louise, and expressed his hope to be with them +again as expeditiously as possible. Three days had now elapsed since he +had left them. Delaine, rather to Elizabeth's astonishment, had once or +twice inquired when he might be expected to return. + +Elizabeth found a little path by the lake shore, and pursued it a short +way; but presently the splendour and the beauty overpowered her; her +feet paused of themselves. She sat down on a jutting promontory of rock, +and lost herself in the forms and hues of the morning. In front of her +rose a wall of glacier sheer out of the water and thousands of feet +above the lake, into the clear brilliance of the sky. On either side of +its dazzling whiteness, mountains of rose-coloured rock, fledged with +pine, fell steeply to the water's edge, enclosing and holding up the +glacier; and vast rock pinnacles of a paler rose, melting into gold, +broke, here and there, the gleaming splendour of the ice. The sun, just +topping the great basin, kindled the ice surfaces, and all the +glistening pinks and yellows, the pale purples and blood-crimsons of the +rocks, to flame and splendour; while the shadows of the coolest azure +still held the hollows and caves of the glacier. Deep in the motionless +lake, the shining snows repeated themselves, so also the rose-red rocks, +the blue shadows, the dark buttressing crags with their pines. Height +beyond height, glory beyond glory--from the reality above, the eye +descended to its lovelier image below, which lay there, enchanted and +insubstantial, Nature's dream of itself. + +The sky was pure light; the air pure fragrance. Heavy dews dripped from +the pines and the moss, and sparkled in the sun. Beside Elizabeth, under +a group of pines, lay a bed of snow-lilies, their golden heads +dew-drenched, waiting for the touch of the morning, waiting, too--so she +thought--for that Canadian poet who will yet place them in English verse +beside the daffodils of Westmoreland. + +She could hardly breathe for delight. The Alps, whether in their Swiss +or Italian aspects, were dear and familiar to her. She climbed nimbly +and well; and her senses knew the magic of high places. But never surely +had even travelled eyes beheld a nobler fantasy of Nature than that +composed by these snows and forests of Lake Louise; such rocks of opal +and pearl; such dark gradations of splendour in calm water; such +balanced intricacy and harmony in the building of this ice-palace that +reared its majesty above the lake; such a beauty of subordinate and +converging outline in the supporting mountains on either hand; as though +the Earth Spirit had lingered on his work, finishing and caressing it in +conscious joy. + +And in Elizabeth's heart, too, there was a freshness of spring; an +overflow of something elemental and irresistible. + +Yet, strangely enough, it was at that moment expressing itself in +regret and compunction. Since the dawn, that morning, she had been +unable to sleep. The strong light, the pricking air, had kept her +wakeful; and she had been employing her time in writing to her mother, +who was also her friend. + +"... Dear little mother--You will say I have been unkind--I say it to +myself. But would it really have been fairer if I had forbidden him to +join us? There was just a chance--it seems ridiculous now--but there +was--I confess it! And by my letter from Toronto--though really my +little note might have been written to anybody--I as good as said so to +him, 'Come and throw the dice and--let us see what falls out!' +Practically, that is what it amounted to--I admit it in sackcloth and +ashes. Well!--we have thrown the dice--and it won't do! No, it won't, it +won't do! And it is somehow all my fault--which is abominable. But I see +now, what I never saw at home or in Italy, that he is a thousand years +older than I--that I should weary and jar upon him at every turn, were I +to marry him. Also I have discovered--out here--I believe, darling, you +have known it all along!--that there is at the very root of me a kind of +savage--a creature that hates fish-knives and finger-glasses and +dressing for dinner--the things I have done all my life, and Arthur +Delaine will go on doing all his. Also that I never want to see a museum +again--at least, not for a long time; and that I don't care twopence +whether Herculaneum is excavated or not! + +"Isn't it shocking? I can't explain myself; and poor Mr. Arthur +evidently can't make head or tail of me, and thinks me a little mad. So +I am, in a sense. I am suffering from a new kind of _folie des +grandeurs_. The world has suddenly grown so big; everything in the human +story--all its simple fundamental things at least--is writ so large +here. Hope and ambition--love and courage--the man wrestling with the +earth--the woman who bears and brings up children--it is as though I had +never felt, never seen them before. They rise out of the dust and mist +of our modern life--great shapes warm from the breast of Nature--and I +hold my breath. Behind them, for landscape, all the dumb age-long past +of these plains and mountains; and in front, the future on the loom, and +the young radiant nation, shuttle in hand, moving to and fro at her +unfolding task! + +"How unfair to Mr. Arthur that this queer intoxication of mine should +have altered him so in my foolish eyes--as though one had scrubbed all +the golden varnish from an old picture, and left it crude and +charmless. It is not his fault--is mine. In Europe we loved the same +things; his pleasure kindled mine. But here he enjoys nothing that I +enjoy; he is longing for a tiresome day to end, when my heart is just +singing for delight. For it is not only Canada in the large that holds +me, but all its dear, human, dusty, incoherent detail--all its clatter +of new towns and spreading farms--of pushing railways and young +parliaments--of roadmaking and bridgemaking--of saw-mills and lumber +camps--detail so different from anything I have ever discussed with +Arthur Delaine before. Some of it is ugly, I know--I don't care! It is +like a Rembrandt ugliness--that only helps and ministers to a stronger +beauty, the beauty of prairie and sky, and the beauty of the human +battle, the battle of blood and brain, with the earth and her forces. + +"'_Enter these enchanted woods, ye who dare!_'" + +"There is a man here--a Mr. George Anderson, of whom I told you +something in my last letter--who seems to embody the very life of this +country, to be the prairie, and the railway, and the forest--their very +spirit and avatar. Personally, he is often sad; his own life has been +hard; and yet the heart of him is all hope and courage, all delight too +in the daily planning and wrestling, the contrivance and the +cleverness, the rifling and outwitting of Nature--that makes a +Canadian--at any rate a Western Canadian. I suppose he doesn't know +anything about art. Mr. Arthur seems to have nothing in common with him; +but there is in him that rush and energy of life, from which, surely, +art and poetry spring, when the time is ripe. + +"Don't of course imagine anything absurd! He is just a young Scotch +engineer, who seems to have made some money as people do make money +here--quickly and honestly--and is shortly going into Parliament. They +say that he is sure to be a great man. To us--to Philip and me, he has +been extremely kind. I only meant that he seems to be in place here--or +anywhere, indeed, where the world is moving; while Mr. Arthur, in +Canada, is a walking anachronism. He is out of perspective; he +doesn't fit. + +"You will say, that if I married him, it would not be to live in Canada, +and once at home again, the old estimates and 'values' would reassert +themselves. But in a sense--don't be alarmed--I shall always live in +Canada. Or, rather, I shall never be quite the same again; and Mr. +Arthur would find me a restless, impracticable, discontented woman. + +"Would it not really be kinder if I suggested to him to go home by +California, while we come back again through the Rockies? Don't you +think it would? I feel that I have begun to get on his nerves--as he on +mine. If you were only here! But, I assure you, he doesn't _look_ +miserable; and I think he will bear up very well. And if it will be any +comfort to you to be told that I know what is meant by the gnawing of +the little worm, Compunction, then be comforted, dearest; for it gnaws +horribly, and out of all proportion--I vow--to my crimes. + +"Philip is better on the whole, and has taken an enormous fancy to Mr. +Anderson. But, as I have told you all along, he is not so much better as +you and I hoped he would be. I take every care of him that I can, but +you know that he is not wax, when it comes to managing. However, Mr. +Anderson has been a great help." + +Recollections of this letter, and other thoughts besides, coming from +much deeper strata of the mind than she had been willing to reveal to +her mother, kept slipping at intervals through Elizabeth's +consciousness, as she sat beside the lake. + +A step beside her startled her, and she looked up to see Delaine +approaching. + +"Out already, Mr. Arthur! But _I_ have had breakfast!" + +"So have I. What a place!" + +Elizabeth did not answer, but her smiling eyes swept the glorious circle +of the lake. + +"How soon will it all be spoilt and vulgarised?" said Delaine, with a +shrug. "Next year, I suppose, a funicular, to the top of the glacier." + +Elizabeth cried out. + +"Why not?" he asked her, as he rather coolly and deliberately took his +seat beside her. "You applaud telephones on the prairies; why not +funiculars here?" + +"The one serves, the other spoils," said Elizabeth eagerly. + +"Serves whom? Spoils what?" The voice was cold. "All travellers are not +like yourself." + +"I am not afraid. The Canadians will guard their heritage." + +"How dull England will seem to you when you go back to it!" he said to +her, after a moment. His tone had an under-note of bitterness which +Elizabeth uncomfortably recognised. + +"Oh! I have a way of liking what I must like," she said, hurriedly. +"Just now, certainly, I am in love with deserts--flat or +mountainous--tempered by a private car." + +He laughed perfunctorily. And suddenly it seemed to her that he had come +out to seek her with a purpose, and that a critical moment might be +approaching. Her cheeks flushed, and to hide them she leant over the +water's edge and began to trail her finger in its clear wave. + +He, however, sat in hesitation, looking at her, the prey of thoughts to +which she had no clue. He could not make up his mind, though he had just +spent an almost sleepless night on the attempt to do it. + +The silence became embarrassing. Then, if he still groped, she seemed to +see her way, and took it. + +"It was very good of you to come out and join our wanderings," she said +suddenly. Her voice was clear and kind. He started. + +"You know I could ask for nothing better," was his slow reply, not +without dignity. "It has been an immense privilege to see you like this, +day by day." + +Elizabeth's pulse quickened. + +"How can I manage it?" she desperately thought. "But I must--" + +"That's very sweet of you," she said aloud, "when I have bored you so +with my raptures. And now it's coming to an end, like all nice things. +Philip and I think of staying a little in Vancouver. And the Governor +has asked us to go over to Victoria for a few days. You, I suppose, will +be doing the proper round, and going back by Seattle and San Francisco?" + +Delaine received the blow--and understood it. There had been no +definite plans ahead. Tacitly, it had been assumed, he thought, that he +was to return with them to Montreal and England. This gentle question, +then, was Elizabeth's way of telling him that his hopes were vain and +his journey fruitless. + +He had not often been crossed in his life, and a flood of resentment +surged up in a very perplexed mind. + +"Thank you. Yes--I shall go home by San Francisco." + +The touch of haughtiness in his manner, the manner of one accustomed all +his life to be a prominent and considered person in the world, did not +disguise from Elizabeth the soreness underneath. It was hard to hurt her +old friend. But she could only sit as though she felt nothing--meant +nothing--of any importance. + +And she achieved it to perfection. Delaine, through all his tumult of +feeling, was sharply conscious of her grace, her reticence, her soft +dignity. They were exactly what he coveted in a wife--what he hoped he +had captured in Elizabeth. How was it they had been snatched from him? +He turned blindly on the obstacle that had risen in his path, and the +secret he had not yet decided how to handle began to run away with him. + +He bent forward, with a slightly heightened colour. + +"Lady Merton--we might not have another opportunity--will you allow me a +few frank words with you--the privilege of an old friend?" + +Elizabeth turned her face to him, and a pair of startled eyes that tried +not to waver. + +"Of course, Mr. Arthur," she said smiling. "Have I been doing anything +dreadful?" + +"May I ask what you personally know of this Mr. Anderson?" + +He saw--or thought he saw--her brace herself under the sudden surprise +of the name, and her momentary discomfiture pleased him. + +"What I know of Mr. Anderson?" she repeated wondering. "Why, no more +than we all know. What do you mean, Mr. Arthur? Ah, yes, I remember, you +first met him in Winnipeg; _we_ made acquaintance with him the +day before." + +"For the first time? But you are now seeing a great deal of him. Are you +quite sure--forgive me if I seem impertinent--that he is--quite the +person to be admitted to your daily companionship?" + +He spoke slowly and harshly. The effort required before a naturally +amiable and nervous man could bring himself to put such an +uncomfortable question made it appear particularly offensive. + +"Our daily companionship?" repeated Elizabeth in bewilderment. "What can +you mean, Mr. Arthur? What is wrong with Mr. Anderson? You saw that +everybody at Winnipeg seemed to know him and respect him; people like +the Chief Justice, and the Senator--what was his name?--and Monsieur +Mariette. I don't understand why you ask me such a thing. Why should we +suppose there are any mysteries about Mr. Anderson?" + +Unconsciously her slight figure had stiffened, her voice had changed. + +Delaine felt an admonitory qualm. He would have drawn back; but it was +too late. He went on doggedly-- + +"Were not all these persons you named acquainted with Mr. Anderson in +his public capacity? His success in the strike of last year brought him +a great notoriety. But his private history--his family and +antecedents--have you gathered anything at all about them?" + +Something that he could not decipher flashed through Elizabeth's +expression. It was a strange and thrilling sense that what she had +gathered she would not reveal for--a kingdom! + +"Monsieur Mariette told me all that anyone need want to know!" she +cried, breathing quick. "Ask him what he thinks--what he feels! But if +you ask _me_, I think Mr. Anderson carries his history in his face." + +Delaine pondered a moment, while Elizabeth waited, challenging, +expectant, her brown eyes all vivacity. + +"Well--some facts have come to my knowledge," he said, at last, "which +have made me ask you these questions. My only object--you must, you will +admit that!--is to save you possible pain--a possible shock." + +"Mr. Arthur!" the voice was peremptory--"If you have learned anything +about Mr. Anderson's private history--by chance--without his +knowledge--that perhaps he would rather we did not know--I beg you will +not tell me--indeed--please--I forbid you to tell me. We owe him much +kindness these last few weeks. I cannot gossip about him behind +his back." + +All her fine slenderness of form, her small delicacy of feature, seemed +to him tense and vibrating, like some precise and perfect instrument +strained to express a human feeling or intention. But what feeling? +While he divined it, was she herself unconscious of it? His +bitterness grew. + +"Dear Lady Merton--can you not trust an old friend?" + +She did not soften. + +"I do trust him. But"--her smile flashed--"even new acquaintances have +their rights." + +"You will not understand," he said, earnestly. "What is in my mind came +to me, through no wish or will of mine. You cannot suppose that I have +been prying into Mr. Anderson's affairs! But now that the information is +mine, I feel a great responsibility towards you." + +"Don't feel it. I am a wilful woman." + +"A rather perplexing one! May I at least be sure that"--he +hesitated--"that you will be on your guard?" + +"On my guard?" she lifted her eyebrows proudly--"and against what?" + +"That is precisely what you won't let me tell you." + +She laughed--a little fiercely. + +"There we are; no forrarder. But please remember, Mr. Arthur, how soon +we shall all be separating. Nothing very dreadful can happen in these +few days--can it?" + +For the first time there was a touch of malice in her smile. + +Delaine rose, took one or two turns along the path in front of her, and +then suddenly stopped beside her. + +"I think"--he said, with emphasis, "that Mr. Anderson will probably find +himself summoned away--immediately--before you get to Vancouver. But +that I will discuss with him. You could give me no address, so I have +not yet been able to communicate with him." + +Again Elizabeth's eyebrows went up. She rose. + +"Of course you will do what you think best. Shall we go back to the +hotel?" + +They walked along in silence. He saw that she was excited, and that he +had completely missed his stroke; but he did not see how to mend the +situation. + +"Oh! there is Philip, going to fish," said Elizabeth at last, as though +nothing had happened. "I wondered what could possibly have got him up +so early." + +Philip waved to her as she spoke, shouting something which the mountain +echoes absorbed. He was accompanied by a young man, who seemed to be +attached to the hotel as guide, fisherman, hunter--at the pleasure of +visitors. But Elizabeth had already discovered that he had the speech of +a gentleman, and attended the University of Manitoba during the winter. +In the absence of Anderson, Philip had no doubt annexed him for +the morning. + +There was a pile of logs lying on the lake side. Philip, rod in hand, +began to scramble over them to a point where several large trunks +overhung deep water. His companion meanwhile was seated on the moss, +busy with some preparations. + +"I hope Philip will be careful," said Delaine, suddenly. "There is +nothing so slippery as logs." + +Elizabeth, who had been dreaming, looked up anxiously. As she did so +Philip, high perched on the furthest logs, turned again to shout to his +sister, his light figure clear against the sunlit distance. Then the +figure wavered, there was a sound of crashing wood, and Philip fell +head-foremost into the lake before him. + +The young man on the bank looked up, threw away his rod and his coat, +and was just plunging into the lake when he was anticipated by another +man who had come running down the bank of the hotel, and was already in +the water. Elizabeth, as she rushed along the edge, recognized Anderson. +Philip seemed to have disappeared; but Anderson dived, and presently +emerged with a limp burden. The guide was now aiding him, and between +them they brought young Gaddesden to land. The whole thing passed so +rapidly that Delaine and Elizabeth, running at full speed, had hardly +reached the spot before Anderson was on the shore, bearing the lad +in his arms. + +Elizabeth bent over him with a moan of anguish. He seemed to her dead. + +"He has only fainted," said Anderson peremptorily. "We must get him +in." And he hurried on, refusing Delaine's help, carrying the thin body +apparently with ease along the path and up the steps to the hotel. The +guide had already been sent flying ahead to warn the household. + +Thus, by one of the commonplace accidents of travel, the whole scene was +changed for this group of travellers. Philip Gaddesden would have taken +small harm from his tumble into the lake, but for the fact that the +effects of rheumatic fever were still upon him. As it was, a certain +amount of fever, and some heart-symptoms that it was thought had been +overcome, reappeared, and within a few hours of the accident it became +plain that, although he was in no danger, they would be detained at +least ten days, perhaps a fortnight, at Lake Louise. Elizabeth sat down +in deep despondency to write to her mother, and then lingered awhile +with the letter before her, her head in her hands, pondering with +emotion what she and Philip owed to George Anderson, who had, it seemed, +arrived by a night train, and walked up to the hotel, in the very nick +of time. As to the accident itself, no doubt the guide, a fine swimmer +and _coureur de bois_, would have been sufficient, unaided, to save her +brother. But after all, it was Anderson's strong arms that had drawn +him from the icy depths of the lake, and carried him to safety! And +since? Never had telephone and railway, and general knowledge of the +resources at command, been worked more skilfully than by him, and the +kind people of the hotel. "Don't be the least anxious"--she had written +to her mother--"we have a capital doctor--all the chemist's stuff we +want--and we could have a nurse at any moment. Mr. Anderson has only to +order one up from the camp hospital in the pass. But for the present, +Simpson and I are enough for the nursing." + +She heard voices in the next room; a faint question from Philip, +Anderson replying. What an influence this man of strong character had +already obtained over her wilful, self-indulgent brother! She saw the +signs of it in many directions; and she was passionately grateful for +it. Her thoughts went wandering back over the past three weeks--over the +whole gradual unveiling of Anderson's personality. She recalled her +first impressions of him the day of the "sink-hole." An ordinary, +strong, capable, ambitious young man, full of practical interests, with +brusque manners, and a visible lack of some of the outer wrappings to +which she was accustomed--it was so that she had first envisaged him. +Then at Winnipeg--through Mariette and others--she had seen him as +other men saw him, his seniors and contemporaries, the men engaged with +him in the making of this vast country. She had appreciated his +character in what might be hereafter, apparently, its public aspects; +the character of one for whom the world surrounding him was eagerly +prophesying a future and a career. His profound loyalty to Canada, and +to certain unspoken ideals behind, which were really the source of the +loyalty; the atmosphere at once democratic and imperial in which his +thoughts and desires moved, which had more than once communicated its +passion to her; a touch of poetry, of melancholy, of greatness even--all +this she had gradually perceived. Winnipeg and the prairie journey had +developed him thus before her. + +So much for the second stage in her knowledge of him. There was a third; +she was in the midst of it. Her face flooded with colour against her +will. "Out of the strong shall come forth sweetness." The words rushed +into her mind. She hoped, as one who wished him well, that he would +marry soon and happily. And the woman who married him would find it no +tame future. + +Suddenly Delaine's warnings occurred to her. She laughed, a little +hysterically. + +Could anyone have shown himself more helpless, useless, incompetent, +than Arthur Delaine since the accident? Yet he was still on the spot. +She realised, indeed, that it was hardly possible for their old friend +to desert them under the circumstances. But he merely represented an +additional burden. + +A knock at the sitting-room door disturbed her. Anderson appeared. + +"I am off to Banff, Lady Merton," he said from the threshold. "I think I +have all your commissions. Is your letter ready?" + +She sealed it and gave it to him. Then she looked up at him; and for the +first time he saw her tremulous and shaken; not for her brother, but +for himself. + +"I don't know how to thank you." She offered her hand; and one of those +beautiful looks--generous, friendly, sincere--of which she had +the secret. + +He, too, flushed, his eyes held a moment by hers. Then he, somewhat +brusquely, disengaged himself. + +"Why, I did nothing! He was in no danger; the guide would have had him +out in a twinkle. I wish"--he frowned--"you wouldn't look so done +up over it." + +"Oh! I am all right." + +"I brought you a book this morning. Mercifully I left it in the +drawing-room, so it hasn't been in the lake." + +He drew it from his pocket. It was a French novel she had expressed a +wish to read. + +She exclaimed, + +"How did you get it?" + +"I found Mariette had it with him. He sends it me from Vancouver. Will +you promise to read it--and rest?" + +He drew a sofa towards the window. The June sunset was blazing on the +glacier without. Would he next offer to put a shawl over her, and tuck +her up? She retreated hastily to the writing-table, one hand upon it. He +saw the lines of her gray dress, her small neck and head; the Quakerish +smoothness of her brown hair, against the light. The little figure was +grace, refinement, embodied. But it was a grace that implied an +environment--the cosmopolitan, luxurious environment, in which such +women naturally move. + +His look clouded. He said a hasty good-bye and departed. Elizabeth was +left breathing quick, one hand on her breast. It was as though she had +escaped something--or missed something. + +As he left the hotel, Anderson found himself intercepted by Delaine in +the garden, and paused at once to give him the latest news. + +"The report is really good, everything considered," he said, with a +cordiality born of their common anxiety; and he repeated the doctor's +last words to himself. + +"Excellent!" said Delaine; then, clearing his throat, "Mr. Anderson, may +I have some conversation with you?" + +Anderson looked surprised, threw him a keen glance, and invited him to +accompany him part of the way to Laggan. They turned into a solitary +road, running between the woods. It was late evening, and the sun was +striking through the Laggan valley beneath them in low shafts of gold +and purple. + +"I am afraid what I have to say will be disagreeable to you," began +Delaine, abruptly. "And on this particular day--when we owe you so +much--it is more than disagreeable to myself. But I have no choice. +By some extraordinary chance, with which I beg you to believe my +own will has had nothing to do, I have become acquainted with +something--something that concerns you privately--something that I fear +will be a great shock to you." + +Anderson stood still. + +"What can you possibly mean?" he said, in growing amazement. + +"I was accosted the night before last, as I was strolling along the +railway line, by a man I had never seen before, a man who--pardon me, it +is most painful to me to seem to be interfering with anyone's private +affairs--who announced himself as"--the speaker's nervous stammer +intervened before he jerked out the words--"as your father!" + +"As my father? Somebody must be mad!" said Anderson quietly. "My father +has been dead ten years." + +"I am afraid there is a mistake. The man who spoke to me is aware that +you suppose him dead--he had his own reasons, he declares, for allowing +you to remain under a misconception; he now wishes to reopen +communications with you, and to my great regret, to my indignation, I +may say he chose me--an entire stranger--as his intermediary. He seems +to have watched our party all the way from Winnipeg, where he first saw +you, casually, in the street. Naturally I tried to escape from him--to +refer him to you. But I could not possibly escape from him, at night, +with no road for either of us but the railway line. I was at his mercy." + +"What was his reason for not coming direct to me?" + +They were still pausing in the road. Delaine could see in the failing +light that Anderson had grown pale. But he perceived also an expression +of scornful impatience in the blue eyes fixed upon him. + +"He has professed to be afraid--" + +"That I should murder him?" said Anderson with a laugh. "And he told you +some sort of a story?" + +"A long one, I regret to say." + +"And not to my credit?" + +"The tone of it was certainly hostile. I would rather not repeat it." + +"I should not dream of asking you to do so. And where is this precious +individual to be found?" + +Delaine named the address which had been given him--of a lodging mainly +for railway men near Laggan. + +"I will look him up," said Anderson briefly. "The whole story of course +is a mere attempt to get money--for what reason I do not know; but I +will look into it." + +Delaine was silent. Anderson divined from his manner that he believed +the story true. In the minds of both the thought of Lady Merton emerged. +Anderson scorned to ask, "Have you said anything to them?" and Delaine +was conscious of a nervous fear lest he should ask it. In the light of +the countenance beside him, no less than of the event of the day, his +behaviour of the morning began to seem to him more than disputable. In +the morning he had seemed to himself the defender of Elizabeth and the +class to which they both belonged against low-born adventurers with +disreputable pasts. But as he stood there, confronting the "adventurer," +his conscience as a gentleman--which was his main and typical +conscience--pricked him. + +The inward qualm, however, only stiffened his manner. And Anderson asked +nothing. He turned towards Laggan. + +"Good night. I will let you know the result of my investigations." And, +with the shortest of nods, he went off at a swinging pace down the road. + +"I have only done my duty," argued Delaine with himself as he returned +to the hotel. "It was uncommonly difficult to do it at such a moment! +But to him I have no obligations whatever; my obligations are to Lady +Merton and her family." + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +It was dark when Anderson reached Laggan, if that can be called darkness +which was rather a starry twilight, interfused with the whiteness of +snow-field and glacier. He first of all despatched a message to Banff +for Elizabeth's commissions. Then he made straight for the ugly frame +house of which Delaine had given him the address. It was kept by a +couple well known to him, an Irishman and his wife who made their living +partly by odd jobs on the railway, partly by lodging men in search of +work in the various construction camps of the line. To all such persons +Anderson was a familiar figure, especially since the great strike of the +year before. + +The house stood by itself in a plot of cleared ground, some two or three +hundred yards from the railway station. A rough road through the pine +wood led up to it. + +Anderson knocked, and Mrs. Ginnell came to the door, a tired, and +apparently sulky woman. + +"I hear you have a lodger here, Mrs. Ginnell," said Anderson, standing +in the doorway, "a man called McEwen; and that he wants to see me on +some business or other." + +Mrs. Ginnell's countenance darkened. + +"We have an old man here, Mr. Anderson, as answers to that name, but +you'll get no business out of him--and I don't believe he _have_ any +business with any decent crater. When he arrived two days ago he was +worse for liquor, took on at Calgary. I made my husband look after him +that night to see he didn't get at nothing, but yesterday he slipped us +both, an' I believe he's now in that there outhouse, a-sleeping it off. +Old men like him should be sent somewhere safe, an' kep' there." + +"I'll go and see if he's awake, Mrs. Ginnell. Don't you trouble to come. +Any other lodgers?" + +"No, sir. There was a bunch of 'em left this morning--got work on the +Crow's Nest." + +Anderson made his way to the little "shack," Ginnell's house of the +first year, now used as a kind of general receptacle for tools, rubbish +and stores. + +He looked in. On a heap of straw in the corner lay a huddled figure, a +kind of human rag. Anderson paused a moment, then entered, hung the lamp +he had brought with him on a peg, and closed the door behind him. + +He stood looking down at the sleeper, who was in the restless stage +before waking. McEwen threw himself from side to side, muttered, and +stretched. + +Slowly a deep colour flooded Anderson's cheeks and brow; his hands +hanging beside him clenched; he checked a groan that was also a shudder. +The abjectness of the figure, the terrible identification proceeding in +his mind, the memories it evoked, were rending and blinding him. The +winter morning on the snow-strewn prairie, the smell of smoke blown +towards him on the wind, the flames of the burning house, the horror of +the search among the ruins, his father's confession, and his own rage +and despair--deep in the tissues of life these images were stamped. The +anguish of them ran once more through his being. + +How had he been deceived? And what was to be done? He sat down on a heap +of rubbish beside the straw, looking at his father. He had last seen him +as a man of fifty, vigorous, red-haired, coarsely handsome, though +already undermined by drink. The man lying on the straw was approaching +seventy, and might have been much older. His matted hair was nearly +white, face blotched and cavernous; and the relaxation of sleep +emphasised the mean cunning of the mouth. His clothing was torn and +filthy, the hands repulsive. + +Anderson could only bear a few minutes of this spectacle. A natural +shame intervened. He bent over his father and called him. + +"Robert Anderson!" + +A sudden shock passed through the sleeper. He started up, and Anderson +saw his hand dart for something lying beside him, no doubt a revolver. + +But Anderson grasped the arm. + +"Don't be afraid; you're quite safe." + +McEwen, still bewildered by sleep and drink, tried to shake off the +grasp, to see who it was standing over him. Anderson released him, and +moved so that the lamplight fell upon himself. + +Slowly McEwen's faculties came together, began to work. The lamplight +showed him his son George--the fair-haired, broad-shouldered fellow he +had been tracking all these days--and he understood. + +He straightened himself, with an attempt at dignity. + +"So it's you, George? You might have given me notice." + +"Where have you been all these years?" said Anderson, indistinctly. "And +why did you let me believe you dead?" + +"Well, I had my reasons, George. But I don't mean to go into 'em. All +that's dead and gone. There was a pack of fellows then on my +shoulders--I was plumb tired of 'em. I had to get rid of--I did get rid +of 'em--and you, too. I knew you were inquiring after me, and I didn't +want inquiries. They didn't suit me. You may conclude what you like. I +tell you those times are dead and gone. But it seemed to me that Robert +Anderson was best put away for a bit. So I took measures according." + +"You knew I was deceived." + +"Yes, I knew," said the other composedly. "Couldn't be helped." + +"And where have you been since?" + +"In Nevada, George--Comstock--silver-mining. Rough lot, but you get a +stroke of luck sometimes. I've got a chance on now--me and a friend of +mine--that's first-rate." + +"What brought you back to Canada?" + +"Well, it was your aunt, Mrs. Harriet Sykes. Ever hear of her, George?" + +Anderson shook his head. + +"You must have heard of her when you were a little chap. When I left +Ayrshire in 1840 she was a lass of sixteen; never saw her since. But she +married a man well-to-do, and was left a widder with no children. And +when she died t'other day, she'd left me something in her will, and told +the lawyers to advertise over here, in Canada and the States--both. And +I happened on the advertisement in a Chicago paper. Told yer to call on +Smith & Dawkins, Winnipeg. So that was how I came to see +Winnipeg again." + +"When were you there?" + +"Just when you was," said the old man, with a triumphant look, which for +the moment effaced the squalor of his aspect. "I was coming out of Smith +& Dawkins's with the money in my pocket, when I saw you opposite, just +going into a shop. You could ha' knocked me down easy, I warrant ye. +Didn't expect to come on yer tracks as fast as all that. But there you +were, and when you came out and went down t' street, I just followed you +at a safe distance, and saw you go into the hotel. Afterwards, I went +into the Free Library to think a bit, and then I saw the piece in the +paper about you and that Saskatchewan place; and I got hold of a young +man in a saloon who found out all about you and those English swells +you've been hanging round with; and that same night, when you boarded +the train, I boarded it, too. See? Only I am not a swell like you. And +here we are. See?" + +The last speech was delivered with a mixture of bravado, cunning, and +sinister triumph. Anderson sat with his head in his hands, his eyes on +the mud floor, listening. When it was over he looked up. + +"Why didn't you come and speak to me at once?" + +The other hesitated. + +"Well, I wasn't a beauty to look at. Not much of a credit to you, am I? +Didn't think you'd own me. And I don't like towns--too many people +about. Thought I'd catch you somewhere on the quiet. Heard you was going +to the Rockies. Thought I might as well go round by Seattle home. See?" + +"You have had plenty of chances since Winnipeg of making yourself known +to me," said Anderson sombrely. "Why did you speak to a stranger instead +of coming direct to me?" + +McEwen hesitated a moment. + +"Well, I wasn't sure of you. I didn't know how you'd take it. And I'd +lost my nerve, damn it! the last few years. Thought you might just kick +me out, or set the police on me." + +Anderson studied the speaker. His fair skin was deeply flushed; his brow +frowned unconsciously, reflecting the travail of thought behind it. + +"What did you say to that gentleman the other night?" + +McEwen smiled a shifty smile, and began to pluck some pieces of straw +from his sleeve. + +"Don't remember just what I did say. Nothing to do you no harm, anyway. +I might have said you were never an easy chap to get on with. I might +have said that, or I mightn't. Think I did. Don't remember." + +The eyes of the two men met for a moment, Anderson's bright and fixed. +He divined perfectly what had been said to the Englishman, Lady Merton's +friend and travelling companion. A father overborne by misfortunes and +poverty, disowned by a prosperous and Pharisaical son--admitting a few +peccadilloes, such as most men forgive, in order to weigh them against +virtues, such as all men hate. Old age and infirmity on the one hand; +mean hardness and cruelty on the other. Was Elizabeth already +contemplating the picture? + +And yet--No! unless perhaps under the shelter of darkness, it could +never have been possible for this figure before him to play the part of +innocent misfortune, at all events. Could debauch, could ruin of body +and soul be put more plainly? Could they express themselves more clearly +than through this face and form? + +A shudder ran through Anderson, a cry against fate, a sick wondering as +to his own past responsibility, a horror of the future. Then his will +strengthened, and he set himself quietly to see what could be done. + +"We can't talk here," he said to his father. "Come back into the house. +There are some rooms vacant. I'll take them for you." + +McEwen rose with difficulty, groaning as he put his right foot to the +ground. Anderson then perceived that the right foot and ankle were +wrapped round with a bloodstained rag, and was told that the night +before their owner had stumbled over a jug in Mrs. Ginnell's kitchen, +breaking the jug and inflicting some deep cuts on his own foot and +ankle. McEwen, indeed, could only limp along, with mingled curses and +lamentations, supported by Anderson. In the excitement of his son's +appearance he had forgotten his injury. The pain and annoyance of it +returned upon him now with added sharpness, and Anderson realised that +here was yet another complication as they moved across the yard. + +A few words to the astonished Mrs. Ginnell sufficed to secure all her +vacant rooms, four in number. Anderson put his father in one on the +ground floor, then shut the door on him and went back to the woman of +the house. She stood looking at him, flushed, in a bewildered silence. +But she and her husband owed various kindnesses to Anderson, and he +quickly made up his mind. + +In a very few words he quietly told her the real facts, confiding them +both to her self-interest and her humanity. McEwen was to be her only +lodger till the next step could be determined. She was to wait on him, +to keep drink from him, to get him clothes. Her husband was to go out +with him, if he should insist on going out; but Anderson thought his +injury would keep him quiet for a day or two. Meanwhile, no babbling to +anybody. And, of course, generous payment for all that was asked +of them. + +But Mrs. Ginnell understood that she was being appealed to not only +commercially, but as a woman with a heart in her body and a good share +of Irish wit. That moved and secured her. She threw herself nobly into +the business. Anderson might command her as he pleased, and she answered +for her man. Renewed groans from the room next door disturbed them. Mrs. +Ginnell went in to answer them, and came out demanding a doctor. The +patient was in much pain, the wounds looked bad, and she +suspected fever. + +"Yo can't especk places to heal with such as him," she said, grimly. + +With doggedness, Anderson resigned himself. He went to the station and +sent a wire to Field for a doctor. What would happen when he arrived he +did not know. He had made no compact with his father. If the old man +chose to announce himself, so be it. Anderson did not mean to bargain +or sue. Other men have had to bear such burdens in the face of the +world. Should it fall to him to be forced to take his up in like manner, +let him set his teeth and shoulder it, sore and shaken as he was. He +felt a fierce confidence that could still make the world respect him. + +An hour passed away. An answer came from Field to the effect that a +doctor would be sent up on a freight train just starting, and might be +expected shortly. + +While Mrs. Ginnell was still attending on her lodger, Anderson went out +into the starlight to try and think out the situation. The night was +clear and balmy. The high snows glimmered through the lingering +twilight, and in the air there was at last a promise of "midsummer +pomps." Pine woods and streams breathed freshness, and when in his walk +along the railway line--since there is no other road through the Kicking +Horse Pass--he reached a point whence the great Yoho valley became +visible to the right, he checked the rapid movement which had brought +him a kind of physical comfort, and set himself--in face of that +far-stretching and splendid solitude--to wrestle with calamity. + +First of all there was the Englishman--Delaine--and the letter that must +be written him. But there, also, no evasions, no suppliancy. Delaine +must be told that the story was true, and would no doubt think himself +entitled to act upon it. The protest on behalf of Lady Merton implied +already in his manner that afternoon was humiliating enough. The smart +of it was still tingling through Anderson's being. He had till now felt +a kind of instinctive contempt for Delaine as a fine gentleman with a +useless education, inclined to patronise "colonists." The two men had +jarred from the beginning, and at Banff, Anderson had both divined in +him the possible suitor of Lady Merton, and had also become aware that +Delaine resented his own intrusion upon the party, and the rapid +intimacy which had grown up between him and the brother and sister. +Well, let him use his chance! if it so pleased him. No promise whatever +should be asked of him; there should be no suggestion even of a line of +action. The bare fact which he had become possessed of should be +admitted, and he should be left to deal with it. Upon his next step +would depend Anderson's; that was all. + +But Lady Merton? + +Anderson stared across the near valley, up the darkness beyond, where +lay the forests of the Yoho, and to those ethereal summits whence a man +might behold on one side the smoke-wreaths of the great railway, and on +the other side the still virgin peaks of the northern Rockies, untamed, +untrodden. But his eyes were holden; he saw neither snow, nor forests, +and the roar of the stream dashing at his feet was unheard. + +Three weeks, was it, since he had first seen that delicately oval face, +and those clear eyes? The strong man--accustomed to hold himself in +check, to guard his own strength as the instrument, firm and +indispensable, of an iron will--recoiled from the truth he was at last +compelled to recognise. In this daily companionship with a sensitive and +charming woman, endowed beneath her light reserve with all the sweetness +of unspoilt feeling, while yet commanding through her long training in +an old society a thousand delicacies and subtleties, which played on +Anderson's fresh senses like the breeze on young leaves--whither had he +been drifting--to the brink of what precipice had he brought himself, +unknowing? + +He stood there indefinitely, among the charred tree-trunks that bordered +the line, his arms folded, looking straight before him, motionless. + +Supposing to-day had been yesterday, need he--together with this sting +of passion--have felt also this impotent and angry despair? Before his +eyes had seen that figure lying on the straw of Mrs. Ginnell's outhouse, +could he ever have dreamed it possible that Elizabeth Merton should +marry him? + +Yes! He thought, trembling from head to foot, of that expression in her +eyes he had seen that very afternoon. Again and again he had checked his +feeling by the harsh reminder of her social advantages. But, at this +moment of crisis, the man in him stood up, confident and rebellious. He +knew himself sound, intellectually and morally. There was a career +before him, to which a cool and reasonable ambition looked forward +without any paralysing doubts. In this growing Canada, measuring himself +against the other men of the moment, he calmly foresaw his own growing +place. As to money, he would make it; he was in process of making it, +honourably and sufficiently. + +He was well aware indeed that in the case of many women sprung from the +English governing class, the ties that bind them to their own world, its +traditions, and its outlook, are so strong that to try and break them +would be merely to invite disaster. But then from such women his own +pride--his pride in his country--would have warned his passion. It was +to Elizabeth's lovely sympathy, her generous detachment, her free +kindling mind--that his life had gone out. _She_ would, surely, never be +deterred from marrying a Canadian--if he pleased her--because it would +cut her off from London and Paris, and all the ripe antiquities and +traditions of English or European life? Even in the sparsely peopled +Northwest, with which his own future was bound up, how many English +women are there--fresh, some of them, from luxurious and fastidious +homes--on ranches, on prairie farms, in the Okanagan valley! "This +Northwest is no longer a wilderness!" he proudly thought; "it is no +longer a leap in the dark to bring a woman of delicate nurture and +cultivation to the prairies." + +So, only a few hours before, he might have flattered the tyranny of +longing and desire which had taken hold upon him. + +But now! All his life seemed besmirched. His passion had been no sooner +born than, like a wounded bird, it fluttered to the ground. Bring upon +such a woman as Elizabeth Merton the most distant responsibility for +such a being as he had left behind him in the log-hut at Laggan? Link +her life in however remote a fashion with that life? Treachery and +sacrilege, indeed! No need for Delaine to tell him that! His father as a +grim memory of the past--that Lady Merton knew. His own origins--his own +story--as to that she had nothing to discover. But the man who might +have dared to love her, up to that moment in the hut, was now a slave, +bound to a corpse-- + +_Finis_! + +And then as the anguish of the thought swept through him, and by a +natural transmission of ideas, there rose in Anderson the sore and +sudden memory of old, unhappy things, of the tender voices and faces of +his first youth. The ugly vision of his degraded father had brought back +upon him, through a thousand channels of association, the recollection +of his mother. He saw her now--the worn, roughened face, the sweet +swimming eyes; he felt her arms around him, the tears of her long agony +on his face. She had endured--he too must endure. Close, close--he +pressed her to his heart. As the radiant image of Elizabeth vanished +from him in the darkness, his mother--broken, despairing, murdered in +her youth--came to him and strengthened him. Let him do his duty to this +poor outcast, as she would have done it--and put high thoughts from him. + +He tore himself resolutely from his trance of thought, and began to walk +back along the line. All the same, he would go up to Lake Louise, as he +had promised, on the following morning. As far as his own intention was +concerned, he would not cease to look after Lady Merton and her +brother; Philip Gaddesden would soon have to be moved, and he meant to +escort them to Vancouver. + +Sounds approached, from the distance--the "freight," with the doctor, +climbing the steep pass. He stepped on briskly to a signal-man's cabin +and made arrangements to stop the train. + +It was towards midnight when he and the doctor emerged from the +Ginnell's cabin. + +"Oh, I daresay we'll heal those cuts," said the doctor. "I've told Mrs. +Ginnell what to do; but the old fellow's in a pretty cranky state. I +doubt whether he'll trouble the world very long." + +Anderson started. With his eyes on the ground and his hands in his +pockets, he inquired the reason for this opinion. + +"Arteries--first and foremost. It's a wonder they've held out so long, +and then--a score of other things. What can you expect?" + +The speaker went into some details, discussing the case with gusto. A +miner from Nevada? Queer hells often, those mining camps, whether on the +Canadian or the American side of the border. + +"You were acquainted with his family? Canadian, to begin with, I +understand?" + +"Yes. He applied to me for help. Did he tell you much about himself?" + +"No. He boasted a lot about some mine in the Comstock district which is +to make his fortune, if he can raise the money to buy it up. If he can +raise fifteen thousand dollars, he says, he wouldn't care to call +Rockefeller his uncle!" + +"That's what he wants, is it?" said Anderson, absently, "fifteen +thousand dollars?" + +"Apparently. Wish he may get it!" laughed the doctor. "Well, keep him +from drink, if you can. But I doubt if you'll cheat the undertaker very +long. Good night. There'll be a train along soon that'll pick me up." + +Anderson went back to the cabin, found that his father had dropped +asleep, left money and directions with Mrs. Ginnell, and then returned +to his own lodgings. + +He sat down to write to Delaine. It was clear that, so far, that +gentleman and Mrs. Ginnell were the only other participants in the +secret of McEwen's identity. The old man had not revealed himself to the +doctor. Did that mean that--in spite of his first reckless interview +with the Englishman--he had still some notion of a bargain with his son, +on the basis of the fifteen thousand dollars? + +Possibly. But that son had still to determine his own line of action. +When at last he began to write, he wrote steadily and without a pause. +Nor was the letter long. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +On the morning following his conversation with Anderson on the Laggan +road, Delaine impatiently awaited the arrival of the morning mail from +Laggan. When it came, he recognised Anderson's handwriting on one of the +envelopes put into his hand. Elizabeth, having kept him company at +breakfast, had gone up to sit with Philip. Nevertheless, he took the +precaution of carrying the letter out of doors to read it. + +It ran as follows: + + "DEAR MR. DELAINE--You were rightly informed, and the man you + saw is my father. I was intentionally deceived ten years ago + by a false report of his death. Into that, however, I need + not enter. If you talked with him, as I understand you did, + for half an hour, you will, I think, have gathered that his + life has been unfortunately of little advantage either to + himself or others. But that also is my personal affair--and + his. And although in a moment of caprice, and for reasons not + yet plain to me, he revealed himself to you, he appears + still to wish to preserve the assumed name and identity that + he set up shortly after leaving Manitoba, seventeen years + ago. As far as I am concerned, I am inclined to indulge him. + But you will, of course, take your own line, and will no + doubt communicate it to me. I do not imagine that my private + affairs or my father's can be of any interest to you, but + perhaps I may say that he is at present for a few days in the + doctor's hands and that I propose as soon as his health is + re-established to arrange for his return to the States, where + his home has been for so long. I am, of course, ready to make + any arrangements for his benefit that seem wise, and that he + will accept. I hope to come up to Lake Louise to-morrow, and + shall bring with me one or two things that Lady Merton asked + me to get for her. Next week I hope she may be able and + inclined to take one or two of the usual excursions from the + hotel, if Mr. Gaddesden goes on as well as we all expect. I + could easily make the necessary arrangements for ponies, + guides, &c. + + "Yours faithfully, + + "GEORGE ANDERSON." + +"Upon my word, a cool hand! a very cool hand!" muttered Delaine in some +perplexity, as he thrust the letter into his pocket, and strolled on +toward the lake. His mind went back to the strange nocturnal encounter +which had led to the development of this most annoying relation between +himself and Anderson. He recalled the repulsive old man, his uneducated +speech, the signs about him of low cunning and drunken living, his +rambling embittered charges against his son, who, according to him, had +turned his father out of the Manitoba farm in consequence of a family +quarrel, and had never cared since to find out whether he was alive or +dead. "Sorry to trouble you, sir, I'm sure--a genelman like +you"--obsequious old ruffian!--"but my sons were always kittle-cattle, +and George the worst of 'em all. If you would be so kind, sir, as to gie +'im a word o' preparation--" + +Delaine could hear his own impatient reply: "I have nothing whatever, +sir, to do with your business! Approach Mr. Anderson yourself if you +have any claim to make." Whereupon a half-sly, half-threatening hint +from the old fellow that he might be disagreeable unless well handled; +that perhaps "the lady" would listen to him and plead for him with +his son. + +Lady Merton! Good heavens! Delaine had been immediately ready to promise +anything in order to protect her. + +Yet even now the situation was extremely annoying and improper. Here +was this man, Anderson, still coming up to the hotel, on the most +friendly terms with Lady Merton and her brother, managing for them, +laying them under obligations, and all the time, unknown to Elizabeth, +with this drunken old scamp of a father in the background, who had +already half-threatened to molest her, and would be quite capable, if +thwarted, of blackmailing his son through his English friends! + +"What can I do?" he said to himself, in disgust. "I have no right +whatever to betray this man's private affairs; at the same time I should +never forgive myself--Mrs. Gaddesden would never forgive me--if I were +to allow Lady Merton to run any risk of some sordid scandal which might +get into the papers. Of course this young man ought to take himself off! +If he had any proper feeling whatever he would see how altogether +unfitting it is that he, with his antecedents, should be associating in +this very friendly way with such persons as Elizabeth Merton and +her brother!" + +Unfortunately the "association" had included the rescue of Philip from +the water of Lake Louise, and the provision of help to Elizabeth, in a +strange country, which she could have ill done without. Philip's unlucky +tumble had been, certainly, doubly unlucky, if it was to be the means +of entangling his sister further in an intimacy which ought never to +have been begun. + +And yet how to break through this spider's web? Delaine racked his +brain, and could think of nothing better than delay and a pusillanimous +waiting on Providence. Who knew what mad view Elizabeth might take of +the whole thing, in this overstrained sentimental mood which had +possessed her throughout this Canadian journey? The young man's troubles +might positively recommend him in her eyes! + +No! there was nothing for it but to stay on as an old friend and +watchdog, responsible, at least--if Elizabeth would have none of his +counsels--to her mother and kinsfolk at home, who had so clearly +approved his advances in the winter, and would certainly blame +Elizabeth, on her return, for the fact that his long journey had been +fruitless. He magnanimously resolved that Lady Merton should not be +blamed if he could help it, by anyone except himself. And he had no +intention at all of playing the rejected lover. The proud, well-born, +fastidious Englishman stiffened as he walked. It was wounding to his +self-love to stay where he was; since it was quite plain that Elizabeth +could do without him, and would not regret his departure; but it was no +less wounding to be dismissed, as it were, by Anderson. He would not be +dismissed; he would hold his own. He too would go with them to +Vancouver; and not till they were safely in charge of the +Lieutenant-Governor at Victoria, would he desert his post. + +As to any further communication to Elizabeth, he realised that the hints +into which he had been so far betrayed had profited neither himself nor +her. She had resented them, and it was most unlikely that she would ask +him for any further explanations; and that being so he had better +henceforward hold his peace. Unless of course any further annoyance were +threatened. + + * * * * * + +The hotel cart going down to Laggan for supplies at midday brought +Anderson his answer: + + "DEAR MR. ANDERSON--Your letter gave me great concern. I + deeply sympathise with your situation. As far as I am + concerned, I must necessarily look at the matter entirely + from the point of view of my fellow-travellers. Lady Merton + must not be distressed or molested. So long, however, as this + is secured, I shall not feel myself at liberty to reveal a + private matter which has accidentally come to my knowledge. I + understand, of course, that your father will not attempt any + further communication with me, and I propose to treat the + interview as though it had not happened. + + "I will give Lady Merton your message. It seems to me + doubtful whether she will be ready for excursions next week. + But you are no doubt aware that the hotel makes what are + apparently very excellent and complete arrangements for such + things. I am sure Lady Merton would be sorry to give you + avoidable trouble. However, we shall see you to-morrow, and + shall of course be very glad of your counsels. + + "Yours faithfully, + + "ARTHUR MANDEVILLE DELAINE." + +Anderson's fair skin flushed scarlet as he read this letter. He thrust +it into his pocket and continued to pace up and down in the patch of +half-cleared ground at the back of the Ginnells' house. He perfectly +understood that Delaine's letter was meant to warn him not to be too +officious in Lady Merton's service. "Don't suppose yourself +indispensable--and don't at any time forget your undesirable +antecedents, and compromising situation. On those conditions, I hold +my tongue." + +"Pompous ass!" Anderson found it a hard task to keep his own pride in +check. It was of a different variety from Delaine's, but not a whit +less clamorous. Yet for Lady Merton's sake it was desirable, perhaps +imperative, that he should keep on civil terms with this member of her +party. A hot impulse swept through him to tell her everything, to have +done with secrecy. But he stifled it. What right had he to intrude his +personal history upon her?--least of all this ugly and unsavoury +development of it? Pride spoke again, and self-respect. If it humiliated +him to feel himself in Delaine's power, he must bear it. The only other +alternatives were either to cut himself off at once from his English +friends--that, of course, was what Delaine wished--or to appeal to Lady +Merton's sympathy and pity. Well, he would do neither--and Delaine +might go hang! + +Mrs. Ginnell, with her apron over her head to shield her from a blazing +sun, appeared at the corner of the house. + +"You're wanted, sir!" Her tone was sulky. + +"Anything wrong?" Anderson turned apprehensively. + +"Nothing more than 'is temper, sir. He won't let yer rest, do what you +will for 'im." + +Anderson went into the house. His father was sitting up in bed. Mrs. +Ginnell had been endeavouring during the past hour to make her patient +clean and comfortable, and to tidy his room; but had been at last +obliged to desist, owing to the mixture of ill-humour and bad language +with which he assailed her. + +"Can I do anything for you?" Anderson inquired, standing beside him. + +"Get me out of this blasted hole as soon as possible! That's about all +you can do! I've told that woman to get me my things, and help me into +the other room--but she's in your pay, I suppose. She won't do anything +I tell her, drat her!" + +"The doctor left orders you were to keep quiet to-day." + +McEwen vowed he would do nothing of the kind. He had no time to be +lolling in bed like a fine lady. He had business to do, and must +get home. + +"If you get up, with this fever on you, and the leg in that state, you +will have blood-poisoning," said Anderson quietly, "which will either +kill you or detain you here for weeks. You say you want to talk business +with me. Well, here I am. In an hour's time I must go to Calgary for an +appointment. Suppose you take this opportunity." + +McEwen stared at his son. His blue eyes, frowning in their wrinkled +sockets, gave little or no index, however, to the mind behind them. The +straggling white locks falling round his blotched and feverish face +caught Anderson's attention. Looking back thirty years he could remember +his father vividly--a handsome man, solidly built, with a shock of fair +hair. As a little lad he had been proud to sit high-perched beside him +on the wagon which in summer drove them, every other Sunday, to a +meeting-house fifteen miles away. He could see his mother at the back of +the wagon with the little girls, her grey alpaca dress and cotton +gloves, her patient look. His throat swelled. Nor was the pang of +intolerable pity for his mother only. Deep in the melancholy of his +nature and strengthened by that hateful tie of blood from which he could +not escape, was a bitter, silent compassion for this outcast also. All +the machinery of life set in motion and maintaining itself in the clash +of circumstance for seventy years to produce _this_, at the end! Dismal +questionings ran through his mind. Ought he to have acted as he had done +seventeen years before? How would his mother have judged him? Was he not +in some small degree responsible? + +Meanwhile his father began to talk fast and querulously, with plentiful +oaths from time to time, and using a local miner's slang which was not +always intelligible to Anderson. It seemed it was a question of an old +silver mine on a mountainside in Idaho, deserted some ten years before +when the river gravels had been exhausted, and now to be reopened, like +many others in the same neighbourhood, with improved methods and +machinery, tunnelling instead of washing. Silver enough to pave +Montreal! Ten thousand dollars for plant, five thousand for the claim, +and the thing was done. + +He became incoherently eloquent, spoke of the ease and rapidity with +which the thing could be resold to a syndicate at an enormous profit, +should his "pardners" and he not care to develop it themselves. If +George would find the money--why, George should make his fortune, like +the rest, though he had behaved so scurvily all these years. + +Anderson watched the speaker intently. Presently he began to put +questions--close, technical questions. His father's eyes--till then +eager and greedy--began to flicker. Anderson perceived an unwelcome +surprise--annoyance-- + +"You knew, of course, that I was a mining engineer?" he said at last, +pulling up in his examination. + +"Well, I heard of you that onst at Dawson City," was the slow reply. "I +supposed you were nosin' round like the rest." + +"Why, I didn't go as a mere prospector! I'd had my training at +Montreal." And Anderson resumed his questions. + +But McEwen presently took no pains to answer them. He grew indeed less +and less communicative. The exact locality of the mine, the names of the +partners, the precise machinery required--Anderson, in the end, could +get at neither the one nor the other. And before many more minutes had +passed he had convinced himself that he was wasting his time. That there +was some swindling plot in his father's mind he was certain; he was +probably the tool of some shrewder confederates, who had no doubt sent +him to Montreal after his legacy, and would fleece him on his return. + +"By the way, Aunt Sykes's money, how much was it?" Anderson asked him +suddenly. "I suppose you could draw on that?" + +McEwen could not be got to give a plain answer. It wasn't near enough, +anyhow; not near. The evasion seemed to Anderson purposeless; the mere +shifting and doubling that comes of long years of dishonest living. And +again the question stabbed his consciousness--were his children +justified in casting him so inexorably adrift? + +"Well, I'd better run down and have a look," he said at last. "If it's a +good thing I dare say I can find you the dollars." + +"Run down--where?" asked McEwen sharply. + +"To the mine, of course. I might spare the time next week." + +"No need to trouble yourself. My pardners wouldn't thank me for +betraying their secrets." + +"Well, you couldn't expect me to provide the money without knowing a bit +more about the property, could you?--without a regular survey?" said +Anderson, with a laugh. + +"You trust me with three or four thousand dollars," said McEwen +doggedly--"because I'm your father and I give you my word. And if not, +you can let it alone. I don't want any prying into my affairs." + +Anderson was silent a moment. + +Then he raised his eyes. + +"Are you sure it's all square?" The tone had sharpened. + +"Square? Of course it is. What are you aiming at? You'll believe any +villainy of your old father, I suppose, just the same as you always used +to. I've not had your opportunities, George. I'm not a fine +gentleman--on the trail with a parcel of English swells. I'm a poor old +broken-down miner, who wants to hole-up somewhere, and get comfortable +for his old age; and if you had a heart in your body, you'd lend a +helping hand. When I saw you at Winnipeg"--the tone became a trifle +plaintive and slippery--"I ses to myself, George used to be a nice chap, +with a good heart. If there's anyone ought to help me it's my own son. +And so I boarded that train. But I'm a broken man, George, and you've +used me hard." + +"Better not talk like that," interrupted Anderson in a clear, resolute +voice. "It won't do any good. Look here, father! Suppose you give up +this kind of life, and settle down. I'm ready to give you an allowance, +and look after you. Your health is bad. To speak the truth, this mine +business sounds to me pretty shady. Cut it all! I'll put you with decent +people, who'll look after you." + +The eyes of the two men met; Anderson's insistently bright, McEwen's +wavering and frowning. The June sunshine came into the small room +through a striped and battered blind, illuminating the rough planks of +which it was built, the "cuts" from illustrated papers that were pinned +upon them, the scanty furniture, and the untidy bed. Anderson's head and +shoulders were in a full mellowed light; he held himself with an +unconscious energy, answering to a certain force of feeling within; a +proud strength and sincerity expressed itself through every detail of +attitude and gesture; yet perhaps the delicacy, or rather sensibility, +mingling with the pride, would have been no less evident to a seeing +eye. There was Highland blood in him, and a touch therefore of the +Celtic responsiveness, the Celtic magnetism. The old man opposite to him +in shadow, with his back to the light, had a crouching dangerous look. +It was as though he recognised something in his son for ever lost to +himself; and repulsed it, half enviously, half malignantly. + +But he did not apparently resent Anderson's proposal. He said sulkily: +"Oh, I dessay you'd like to put me away. But I'm not doddering yet." + +All the same he listened in silence to the plan that Anderson developed, +puffing the while at the pipe which he had made Mrs. Ginnell give him. + +"I shan't stay on this side," he said, at last, decidedly. "There's a +thing or two that might turn up agin me--and fellows as 'ud do me a bad +turn if they come across me--dudes, as I used to know in Dawson City. I +shan't stay in Canada. You can make up your mind to that. Besides, the +winter'ud kill me!" + +Anderson accordingly proposed San Francisco, or Los Angeles. Would his +father go for a time to a Salvation Army colony near Los Angeles? +Anderson knew the chief officials--capital men, with no cant about them. +Fruit farming--a beautiful climate--care in sickness--no drink--as much +work or as little as he liked--and all expenses paid. + +McEwen laughed out--a short sharp laugh--at the mention of the Salvation +Army. But he listened patiently, and at the end even professed to think +there might be something in it. As to his own scheme, he dropped all +mention of it. Yet Anderson was under no illusion; there it lay +sparkling, as it were, at the back of his sly wolfish eyes. + +"How in blazes could you take me down?" muttered McEwen--"Thought you +was took up with these English swells." + +"I'm not taken up with anything that would prevent my looking after +you," said Anderson rising. "You let Mrs. Ginnell attend to you--get the +leg well--and we'll see." + +McEwen eyed him--his good looks and his dress, his gentleman's +refinement; and the shaggy white brows of the old miner drew +closer together. + +"What did you cast me off like that for, George?" he asked. + +Anderson turned away. + +"Don't rake up the past. Better not." + +"Where are my other sons, George?" + +"In Montreal, doing well." Anderson gave the details of their +appointments and salaries. + +"And never a thought of their old father, I'll be bound!" said McEwen, +at the end, with slow vindictiveness. + +"You forget that it was your own doing; we believed you dead." + +"Aye!--you hadn't left a man much to come home for!--and all for an +accident!--a thing as might ha' happened to any man." + +The speaker's voice had grown louder. He stared sombrely, defiantly at +his companion. + +Anderson stood with his hands on his sides, looking through the further +window. Then slowly he put his hand into his pocket and withdrew from it +a large pocket-book. Out of the pocket-book he took a delicately made +leather case, holding it in his hand a moment, and glancing uncertainly +at the figure in the bed. + +"What ha' you got there?" growled McEwen. + +Anderson crossed the room. His own face had lost its colour. As he +reached his father, he touched a spring, and held out his hand with the +case lying open within it. + +It contained a miniature--of a young woman in the midst of a group of +children. + +"Do you remember that photograph that was done of them--in a tent--when +you took us all into Winnipeg for the first agricultural show?" he said +hoarsely. "I had a copy--that wasn't burnt. At Montreal, there was a +French artist one year, that did these things. I got him to do this." + +McEwen stared at the miniature--the sweet-faced Scotch woman, the bunch +of children. Then with a brusque movement he turned his face to the +wall, and closed his eyes. + +Anderson's lips opened once or twice as though to speak. Some imperious +emotion seemed to be trying to force its way. But he could not find +words; and at last he returned the miniature to his pocket, walked +quietly to the door, and went out of the room. + +The sound of the closing door brought immense relief to McEwen. He +turned again in bed, and relit his pipe, shaking off the impression left +by the miniature as quickly as possible. What business had George to +upset him like that? He was down enough on his luck as it was. + +He smoked away, gloomily thinking over the conversation. It didn't look +like getting any money out of this close-fisted Puritanical son of his. +Survey indeed! McEwen found himself shaken by a kind of internal +convulsion as he thought of the revelations that would come out. George +was a fool. + +In his feverish reverie, many lines of thought crossed and danced in +his brain; and every now and then he was tormented by the craving for +alcohol. The Salvation Army proposal half amused, half infuriated him. +He knew all about their colonies. Trust him! Your own master for +seventeen years--mixed up in a lot of jobs it wouldn't do to go blabbing +to the Mounted Police--and then to finish up with those hymn-singing +fellows!--George was most certainly a fool! Yet dollars ought to be +screwed out of him--somehow. + +Presently, to get rid of some unpleasant reflections, the old man +stretched out his hand for a copy of the _Vancouver Sentinel_ that was +lying on the bed, and began to read it idly. As he did so, a paragraph +drew his attention. He gripped the paper, and, springing up in bed, read +it twice, peering into it, his features quivering with eagerness. The +passage described the "hold up" of a Northern Pacific train, at a point +between Seattle and the Canadian border. By the help of masks, and a few +sticks of dynamite, the thing had been very smartly done--a whole train +terrorised, the mail van broken open and a large "swag" captured. Billy +Symonds, the notorious train robber from Montana, was suspected, and +there was a hue and cry through the whole border after him and his +accomplices, amongst whom, so it was said, was a band from the Canadian +side--foreign miners mixed up in some of the acts of violence which had +marked the strike of the year before. + +Bill Symonds!--McEwen threw himself excitedly from side to side, unable +to keep still. _He_ knew Symonds--a chap and a half! Why didn't he come +and try it on this side of the line? Heaps of money going backwards and +forwards over the railway! All these thousands of dollars paid out in +wages week by week to these construction camps--must come from somewhere +in cash--Winnipeg or Montreal. He began to play with the notion, +elaborating and refining it; till presently a whole epic of attack and +capture was rushing through his half-crazy brain. + +He had dropped the paper, and was staring abstractedly through the foot +of open window close beside him, which the torn blind did not cover. +Outside, through the clearing with its stumps of jack-pine, ran a path, +a short cut, connecting the station at Laggan with a section-house +further up the line. + +As McEwen's eyes followed it, he began to be aware of a group of men +emerging from the trees on the Laggan side, and walking in single file +along the path. Navvies apparently--carrying bundles and picks. The path +came within a few yards of the window, and of the little stream that +supplied the house with water. + +Suddenly, McEwen sprang up in bed. The two foremost men paused beside +the water, mopped their hot faces, and taking drinking cups out of their +pockets stooped down to the stream. The old man in the cabin bed watched +them with fierce intentness; and as they straightened themselves and +were about to follow their companions who were already out of sight, he +gave a low call. + +The two started and looked round them. Their hands went to their +pockets. McEwen swung himself round so as to reach the window better, +and repeated his call--this time with a different inflection. The men +exchanged a few hurried words. Carefully scrutinising the house, they +noticed a newspaper waving cautiously in an open window. One of them +came forward, the other remained by the stream bathing his feet and +ankles in the water. + +No one else was in sight. Mrs. Ginnell was cooking on the other side of +the house. Anderson had gone off to catch his train. For twenty minutes, +the man outside leant against the window-sash apparently lounging and +smoking. Nothing could be seen from the path, but a battered blind +flapping in the June breeze, and a dark space of room beyond. + + + +CHAPTER X + +The days passed on. Philip in the comfortable hotel at Lake Louise was +recovering steadily, though not rapidly, from the general shock of +immersion. Elizabeth, while nursing him tenderly, could yet find time to +walk and climb, plunging spirit and sense in the beauty of the Rockies. + +On these excursions Delaine generally accompanied her; and she bore it +well. Secretly she cherished some astonishment and chagrin that Anderson +could be with them so little on these bright afternoons among the forest +trails and upper lakes, although she generally found that the plans of +the day had been suggested and organised by him, by telephone from +Laggan, to the kind and competent Scotch lady who was the manager of the +hotel. It seemed to her that he had promised his company; whereas, as a +rule, now he withheld it; and her pride was put to it, on her own part, +not to betray any sign of discontent. He spoke vaguely of "business," +and on one occasion, apparently had gone off for three days to +Saskatchewan on matters connected with the coming general election. + +From the newspaper, or the talk of visitors in the hotel, or the railway +officials who occasionally found their way to Lake Louise to make +courteous inquiries after the English party, Elizabeth became, indeed, +more and more fully aware of the estimation in which Anderson was +beginning to be held. He was already a personage in the Northwest; was +said to be sure of success in his contest at Donaldminster, and of an +immediate Parliamentary career at Ottawa. These prophecies seemed to +depend more upon the man's character than his actual achievements; +though, indeed, the story of the great strike, as she had gathered it +once or twice from the lips of eye-witnesses, was a fine one. For weeks +he had carried his life in his hand among thousands of infuriated +navvies and miners--since the miners had made common cause with the +railwaymen--with a cheerfulness, daring, and resource which in the end +had wrung success from an apparently hopeless situation; a success +attended, when all was over, by an amazing effusion of good will among +both masters and men, especially towards Anderson himself, and a general +improvement in the industrial temper and atmosphere of the Northwest. + +The recital of these things stirred Elizabeth's pulses. But why did she +never hear them from himself? Surely he had offered her friendship, and +the rights of friendship. How else could he justify the scene at Field, +when he had so brusquely probed her secret anxieties for Philip? Her +pride rebelled when she thought of it, when she recalled her wet eyes, +her outstretched hand. Mere humiliation!--in the case of a casual or +indifferent acquaintance. No; on that day, certainly, he had claimed the +utmost privileges, had even strained the rights, of a friend, a real +friend. But his behaviour since had almost revived her first natural +resentment. + +Thoughts like these ran in her mind, and occasionally affected her +manner when they did meet. Anderson found her more reserved, and noticed +that she did not so often ask him for small services as of old. He +suffered under the change; but it was, he knew, his own doing, and he +did not alter his course. + +Whenever he did come, he sat mostly with Philip, over whom he had +gradually established a remarkable influence, not by any definite acts +or speeches, but rather by the stoicism of his own mode of life, coupled +with a proud or laughing contempt for certain vices and self-indulgences +to which it was evident that he himself felt no temptation. As soon as +Philip felt himself sufficiently at home with the Canadian to begin to +jibe at his teetotalism, Anderson seldom took the trouble to defend +himself; yet the passion of moral independence in his nature, of +loathing for any habit that weakens and enslaves the will, infected the +English lad whether he would or no. "There's lots of things he's +stick-stock mad on," Philip would say impatiently to his sister. But the +madness told. And the madman was all the while consolingly rich in +other, and, to Philip, more attractive kinds of madness--the follies of +the hunter and climber, of the man who holds his neck as dross in +comparison with the satisfaction of certain wild instincts that the +Rockies excite in him. Anderson had enjoyed his full share of adventures +with goat and bear. Such things are the customary amusements, it seemed, +of a young engineer in the Rockies. Beside them, English covert-shooting +is a sport for babes; and Philip ceased to boast of his own prowess in +that direction. He would listen, indeed, open-mouthed, to Anderson's +yarns, lying on his long chair on the verandah--a graceful languid +figure--with a coyote rug heaped about him. It was clear to Elizabeth +that Anderson on his side had become very fond of the boy. There was no +trouble he would not take for him. And gradually, silently, proudly, +she allowed him to take less and less for herself. + +Once or twice Arthur Delaine's clumsy hints occurred to her. Was there, +indeed, some private matter weighing on the young man's mind? She would +not allow herself to speculate upon it; though she could not help +watching the relation between the two men with some curiosity. It was +polite enough; but there was certainly no cordiality in it; and once or +twice she suspected a hidden understanding. + +Delaine meanwhile felt a kind of dull satisfaction in the turn of +events. The intimacy between Anderson and Lady Merton had clearly been +checked, or was at least not advancing. Whether it was due to his own +hints to Elizabeth, or to Anderson's chivalrous feeling, he did not +know. But he wrote every mail to Mrs. Gaddesden, discreetly, yet not +without giving her some significant information; he did whatever small +services were possible in the case of a man who went about Canada as a +Johnny Head-in-air, with his mind in another hemisphere; and it was +understood that he was to leave them at Vancouver. In the forced +association of their walks and rides, Elizabeth showed herself gay, +kind, companionable; although often, and generally for no reason that he +could discover, something sharp and icy in her would momentarily make +itself felt, and he would find himself driven back within bounds that he +had perhaps been tempted to transgress. And the result of it all was +that he fell day by day more tormentingly in love with her. Those placid +matrimonial ambitions with which he had left England had been all swept +away; and as he followed her--she on pony-back, he on foot--along the +mountain trails, watching the lightness of her small figure against the +splendid background of peak and pine, he became a troubled, +introspective person; concentrating upon himself and his disagreeable +plight the attention he had hitherto given to a delightful outer world, +sown with the _caches_ of antiquity, in order to amuse him. + +Meanwhile the situation in the cabin at Laggan appeared to be steadily +improving. McEwen had abruptly ceased to be a rebellious and difficult +patient. The doctor's orders had been obeyed; the leg had healed +rapidly; and he no longer threatened or cajoled Mrs. Ginnell on the +subject of liquor. As far as Anderson was concerned, he was generally +sulky and uncommunicative. But Anderson got enough out of him by degrees +to be able to form a fairly complete idea of his father's course of life +since the false report of his death in the Yukon. He realised an +existence on the fringe of civilisation, with its strokes of luck +neutralised by drink, and its desperate, and probably criminal, moments. +And as soon as his father got well enough to limp along the trails of +the Laggan valley, the son noticed incidents which appeared to show that +the old man, while playing the part of the helpless stranger, was by no +means without acquaintance among the motley host of workmen that were +constantly passing through. The links of international trades unionism +no doubt accounted for it. But in McEwen's case, the fraternity to which +he belonged seemed to apply only to the looser and more disreputable +elements among the emigrant throng. + +But at the same time he had shown surprising docility in the matter of +Anderson's counsels. All talk of the Idaho mine had dropped between +them, as though by common consent. Anderson had laid hands upon a young +man, a Salvation Army officer in Vancouver, with whom his father +consented to lodge for the next six weeks; and further arrangements were +to be postponed till the end of that period. Anderson hoped, indeed, to +get his father settled there before Lady Merton moved from Lake Louise. +For in a few days now, the private car was to return from the coast, in +order to take up the English party. + +McEwen's unexpected complaisance led to a great softening in Anderson's +feeling towards his father. All those inner compunctions that haunt a +just and scrupulous nature came freely into play. And his evangelical +religion--for he was a devout though liberal-minded Presbyterian--also +entered in. Was it possible that he might be the agent of his father's +redemption? The idea, the hope, produced in him occasional hidden +exaltations--flights of prayer--mystical memories of his mother--which +lightened what was otherwise a time of bitter renunciation, and +determined wrestling with himself. + +During the latter days of this fortnight, indeed, he could not do enough +for his father. He had made all the Vancouver arrangements; he had +supplied him amply with clothes and other personal necessaries; and he +came home early at night in order to sit and smoke with him. Mrs. +Ginnell, looking in of an evening, beheld what seemed to her a touching +sight, though one far beyond the deserts of such creatures as +McEwen--the son reading the newspaper aloud, or playing dominoes with +his father, or just smoking and chatting. Her hard common sense as a +working-woman suggested to her that Anderson was nursing illusions; and +she scornfully though silently hoped that the "old rip" would soon, one +way or another, be off his shoulders. + +But the illusions, for the moment, were Anderson's sustenance. His +imagination, denied a more personal and passionate food, gave itself +with fire to the redeeming of an outlaw, and the paying of a +spiritual debt. + +It was Wednesday. After a couple of drizzling days the weather was again +fair. The trains rolling through the pass began with these early days of +July to bring a first crop of holiday-makers from Eastern Canada and the +States; the hotels were filling up. On the morrow McEwen was to start +for Vancouver. And a letter from Philip Gaddesden, delivered at Laggan +in the morning, had bitterly reproached Anderson for neglecting them, +and leaving him, in particular, to be bored to death by glaciers +and tourists. + +Early in the afternoon Anderson took his way up the mountain road to +Lake Louise. He found the English travellers established among the pines +by the lake-side, Philip half asleep in a hammock strung between two +pines, while Delaine was reading to Elizabeth from an article in an +archæological review on "Some Fresh Light on the Cippus of Palestrina." + +Lady Merton was embroidering; it seemed to Anderson that she was tired +or depressed. Delaine's booming voice, and the frequent Latin passages +interspersed with stammering translations of his own, in which he +appeared to be interminably tangled, would be enough--the Canadian +thought--to account for a subdued demeanour; and there was, moreover, a +sudden thunderous heat in the afternoon. + +Elizabeth received him a little stiffly, and Philip roused himself from +sleep only to complain: "You've been four mortal days without +coming near us!" + +"I had to go away. I have been to Regina." + +"On politics?" asked Delaine. + +"Yes. We had a couple of meetings and a row." + +"Jolly for you!" grumbled Philip. "But we've had a beastly time. Ask +Elizabeth." + +"Nothing but the weather!" said Elizabeth carelessly. "We couldn't even +see the mountains." + +But why, as she spoke, should the delicate cheek change colour, suddenly +and brightly? The answering blood leapt in Anderson. She _had_ missed +him, though she would not show it. + +Delaine began to question him about Saskatchewan. The Englishman's forms +of conversation were apt to be tediously inquisitive, and Anderson had +often resented them. To-day, however, he let himself be catechised +patiently enough, while all the time conscious, from head to foot, of +one person only--one near and yet distant person. + +Elizabeth wore a dress of white linen, and a broad hat of soft blue. The +combination of the white and blue with her brown hair, and the pale +refinement of her face, seemed to him ravishing, enchanting. So were the +movements of her hands at work, and all the devices of her light +self-command; more attractive, infinitely, to his mature sense than the +involuntary tremor of girlhood. + +"Hallo! What does Stewart want?" said Philip, raising himself in his +hammock. The hunter who had been the companion of his first unlucky +attempt at fishing was coming towards them. The boy sprang to the +ground, and, vowing that he would fish the following morning whatever +Elizabeth might say, went off to consult. + +She looked after him with a smile and a sigh. + +"Better give him his head!" laughed Anderson. Then, from where he stood, +he studied her a moment, unseen, except by Delaine, who was sitting +among the moss a few yards away, and had temporarily forgotten the +Cippus of Palestrina. + +Suddenly the Canadian came forward. + +"Have you explored that path yet, over the shoulder?" he said to Lady +Merton, pointing to the fine promontory of purple piny rock which jutted +out in front of the glacier on the southern side of the lake. + +She shook her head; but was it not still too early and too hot to walk? +Anderson persisted. The path was in shade, and would repay climbing. She +hesitated--and yielded; making a show of asking Delaine to come with +them. Delaine also hesitated, and refrained; making a show of preferring +the "Archaeological Review." He was left to watch them mount the first +stretches of the trail; while Philip strolled along the lake with his +companion in the slouch hat and leggings, deep in tales of bass +and trout. + +Elizabeth and Anderson climbed a long sloping ascent through the pines. +The air was warm and scented; the heat of the sun on the moistened earth +was releasing all its virtues and fragrances, overpowering in the open +places, and stealing even through the shadows. When the trees broke or +receded, the full splendour of the glacier was upon them to their left; +and then for a space they must divine it as a presence behind the +actual, faintly gleaming and flashing through the serried ranks of the +forest. There were heaths and mosses under the pines; but otherwise for +a while the path was flowerless; and Elizabeth discontentedly remarked +it. Anderson smiled. + +"Wait a little--or you'll have to apologise to the Rockies." + +He looked down upon her, and saw that her small face had bloomed into a +vivacity and charm that startled him. Was it only the physical effort +and pleasure of the climb? As for himself, it took all the power of a +strong will to check the happy tumult in his heart. + +Elizabeth asked him of his Saskatchewan journey. He described to her the +growing town he hoped to represent--the rush of its new life. + +"On one Sunday morning there was nothing--the bare prairie; by the +next--so to speak--there was a town all complete, with a hotel, an +elevator, a bank, and a church. That was ten years ago. Then the railway +came; I saw the first train come in, garlanded and wreathed with +flowers. Now there are eight thousand people. They have reserved land +for a park along the river, and sent for a landscape gardener from +England to lay it out; they have made trees grow on the prairie; they +have built a high school and a concert hall; the municipality is full of +ambitions; and all round the town, settlers are pouring in. On market +day you find yourself in a crowd of men, talking cattle and crops, the +last thing in binders and threshers, as farmers do all over the world. +But yet you couldn't match that crowd in the old world." + +"Which you don't know," put in Elizabeth, with her sly smile. + +"Which I don't know," repeated Anderson meekly. "But I guess. And I am +thinking of sayings of yours. Where in Europe can you match the sense of +_boundlessness_ we have here--boundless space, boundless opportunity? It +often makes fools of us: it intoxicates, turns our heads. There is a +germ of madness in this Northwest. I have seen men destroyed by it. But +it is Nature who is the witch. She brews the cup." + +"All very well for the men," Elizabeth said, musing--"and the strong +men. About the women in this country I can't make up my mind." + +"You think of the drudgery, the domestic hardships?" + +"There are some ladies in the hotel, from British Columbia. They are in +easy circumstances--and the daughter is dying of overwork! The husband +has a large fruit farm, but they can get no service; the fruit rots on +the ground; and the two women are worn to death." + +"Aye," said Anderson gravely. "This country breeds life, but it also +devours it." + +"I asked these two women--Englishwomen--if they wanted to go home, and +give it up. They fell upon me with scorn." + +"And you?" + +Elizabeth sighed. + +"I admired them. But could I imitate them? I thought of the house at +home; of the old servants; how it runs on wheels; how pretty and--and +dignified it all is; everybody at their post; no drudgery, no disorder." + +"It is a dignity that costs you dear," said Anderson almost roughly, and +with a change of countenance. "You sacrifice to it things a thousand +times more real, more human." + +"Do we?" said Elizabeth; and then, with a drop in her voice: "Dear, dear +England!" She paused to take breath, and as she leant resting against a +tree he saw her expression change, as though a struggle passed +through her. + +The trees had opened behind them, and they looked back over the lake, +the hotel, and the wide Laggan valley beyond. In all that valley, not a +sign of human life, but the line of the railway. Not a house, not a +village to be seen; and at this distance the forest appeared continuous, +till it died against the rock and snow of the higher peaks. + +For the first time, Elizabeth was home-sick; for the first time she +shrank from a raw, untamed land where the House of Life is only now +rearing its walls and its roof-timbers, and all its warm furnishings, +its ornaments and hangings are still to add. She thought of the English +landscapes, of the woods and uplands round her Cumberland home; of the +old church, the embowered cottages, the lichened farms; the generations +of lives that have died into the soil, like the summer leaves of the +trees; of the ghosts to be felt in the air--ghosts of squire and +labourer and farmer, alive still in men and women of the present, as +they too will live in the unborn. Her heart went out to England; fled +back to it over the seas, as though renewing, in penitence, an +allegiance that had wavered. And Anderson divined it, in the yearning of +her just-parted lips, in the quivering, restrained sweetness of +her look. + +His own heart sank. They resumed their walk, and presently the path grew +steeper. Some of it was rough-hewn in the rock, and encumbered by roots +of trees. Anderson held out a helping hand; her fingers slipped +willingly into it; her light weight hung upon him, and every step was to +him a mingled delight and bitterness. + +"Hard work!" he said presently, with his encouraging smile; "but you'll +be paid." + +The pines grew closer, and then suddenly lightened. A few more steps, +and Elizabeth gave a cry of pleasure. They were on the edge of an +alpine meadow, encircled by dense forest, and sloping down beneath their +feet to a lake that lay half in black shadow, half blazing in the +afternoon sun. Beyond was a tossed wilderness of peaks to west and +south. Light masses of cumulus cloud were rushing over the sky, and +driving waves of blue and purple colour across the mountain masses and +the forest slopes. Golden was the sinking light and the sunlit half of +the lake; golden the western faces and edges of the mountain world; +while beyond the valley, where ran the white smoke of a train, there +hung in the northern sky a dream-world of undiscovered snows, range, it +seemed, beyond range, remote, ethereal; a Valhalla of the old gods of +this vast land, where one might guess them still throned at bay, +majestic, inviolate. + +But it was the flowers that held Elizabeth mute. Anderson had brought +her to a wild garden of incredible beauty. Scarlet and blue, purple and +pearl and opal, rose-pink and lavender-grey the flower-field ran about +her, as though Persephone herself had just risen from the shadow of this +nameless northern lake, and the new earth had broken into eager flame at +her feet. Painter's brush, harebell, speedwell, golden-brown +gaillardias, silvery hawkweed, columbines yellow and blue, heaths, and +lush grasses--Elizabeth sank down among them in speechless joy. Anderson +gathered handfuls of columbine and vetch, of harebell and heath, and +filled her lap with them, till she gently stopped him. + +"No! Let me only look!" + +And with her hands around her knees she sat motionless and still. +Anderson threw himself down beside her. Fragrance, colour, warmth; the +stir of an endless self-sufficient life; the fruitfulness and bounty of +the earth; these things wove their ancient spells about them. Every +little rush of the breeze seemed an invitation and a caress. + +Presently she thanked him for having brought her there, and said +something of remembering it in England. + +"As one who will never see it again?" He turned and faced her smiling. +But behind his frank, pleasant look there was something from which +she shrank. + +"I shall hardly see it, again," she said hesitating. "Perhaps that makes +it the more--the more touching. One clings to it the more--the +impression--because it is so fugitive--will be so soon gone." + +He was silent a moment, then said abruptly: + +"And the upshot of all this is, that you could not imagine living in +Canada?" + +She started. + +"I never said so. Of course I could imagine living in Canada!" + +"But you think, for women, the life up here--in the Northwest--is too +hard." + +She looked at him timidly. + +"That's because I look at it from my English point of view. I am afraid +English life makes weaklings of us." + +"No--not of you!" he said, almost scornfully. "Any life that seemed to +you worth while would find you strong enough for it. I am sure of that." + +Elizabeth smiled and shrugged her shoulders. He went on--almost as +though pleading with her. + +"And as to our Western life--which you will soon have left so far +behind--it strains and tests the women--true--but it rewards them. They +have a great place among us. It is like the women of the early races. We +listen to them in the house, and on the land; we depend on them indoors +and out; their husbands and their sons worship them!" + +Elizabeth flushed involuntarily; but she met him gaily. + +"In England too! Come and see!" + +"I shall probably be in England next spring." + +Elizabeth made a sudden movement. + +"I thought you would be in political life here!" + +"I have had an offer--an exciting and flattering offer. May I tell you?" + +He turned to her eagerly; and she smiled her sympathy, her curiosity. +Whereupon he took a letter from his pocket--a letter from the Dominion +Prime Minister, offering him a mission of inquiry to England, on some +important matters connected with labour and emigration. The letter was +remarkable, addressed to a man so young, and on the threshold of his +political career. + +Elizabeth congratulated him warmly. + +"Of course you will come to stay with us!" + +It was his turn to redden. + +"You are very kind," he said formally. "As you know, I shall have +everything to learn." + +"I will show you _our_ farms!" cried Elizabeth, "and all our dear +decrepit life--our little chessboard of an England." + +"How proud you are, you Englishwomen!" he said, half frowning. "You run +yourselves down--and at bottom there is a pride like Lucifer's." + +"But it is not my pride," she said, hurt, "any more than yours. We are +yours--and you are ours. One state--one country." + +"No, don't let us sentimentalise. We have our own future. It is not +yours." + +"But you are loyal!" The note was one of pain. + +"Are we? Foolish word! Yes, we are loyal, as you are--loyal to a common +ideal, a common mission in the world." + +"To blood also--and to history?" Her voice was almost entreating. What +he had said seemed to jar with other and earlier sayings of his, which +had stirred in her a patriotic pleasure. + +He smiled at her emotion--her implied reproach. + +"Yes, we stand together. We march together. But Canada will have her own +history; and you must not try to make it for her." + +Their eyes met; in hers exaltion, in his a touch of sternness, a +moment's revelation of the Covenanter in his soul. + +Then as the delightful vision of her among the flowers, in her white +dress, the mountains behind and around her, imprinted itself on his +senses, he was conscious of a moment of intolerable pain. Between her +and him--as it were--the abyss opened. The trembling waves of colour in +the grass, the noble procession of the clouds, the gleaming of the +snows, the shadow of the valleys--they were all wiped out. He saw +instead a small unsavoury room--the cunning eyes and coarse mouth of his +father. He saw his own future as it must now be; weighted with this +burden, this secret; if indeed it were still to be a secret; if it were +not rather the wiser and the manlier plan to have done with secrecy. + +Elizabeth rose with a little shiver. The wind had begun to blow cold +from the northwest. + +"How soon can we run down? I hope Mr. Arthur will have sent Philip +indoors." + +Anderson left Lake Louise about eight o'clock, and hurried down the +Laggan road. His mind was divided between the bitter-sweet of these last +hours with Elizabeth Merton, and anxieties, small practical anxieties, +about his father. There were arrangements still to make. He was not +himself going to Vancouver. McEwen had lately shown a strong and +petulant wish to preserve his incognito, or what was left of it. He +would not have his son's escort. George might come and see him at +Vancouver; and that would be time enough to settle up for the winter. + +So Ginnell, owner of the boarding house, a stalwart Irishman of six foot +three, had been appointed to see him through his journey, settle him +with his new protectors, and pay all necessary expenses. + +Anderson knocked at his father's door and was allowed to enter. He found +McEwen walking up and down his room, with the aid of a stick, irritably +pushing chairs and clothes out of his way. The room was in squalid +disorder, and its inmate had a flushed, exasperated look that did not +escape Anderson's notice. He thought it probable that his father was +already repenting his consent to go to Vancouver, and he avoided general +conversation as much as possible. + +McEwen complained of having been left alone; abused Mrs. Ginnell; vowed +she had starved and ill-treated him; and then, to Anderson's surprise, +broke out against his son for having refused to provide him with the +money he wanted for the mine, and so ruined his last chance. Anderson +hardly replied; but what he did say was as soothing as possible; and at +last the old man flung himself on his bed, excitement dying away in a +sulky taciturnity. + +Before Anderson left his room, Ginnell came in, bringing his accounts +for certain small expenses. Anderson, standing with his back to his +father, took out a pocketbook full of bills. At Calgary the day before a +friend had repaid him a loan of a thousand dollars. He gave Ginnell a +certain sum; talked to him in a low voice for a time, thinking his +father had dropped asleep; and then dismissed him, putting the money in +his pocket. + +"Good night, father," he said, standing beside the bed. + +McEwen opened his eyes. + +"Eh?" + +The eyes into which Anderson looked had no sleep in them. They were wild +and bloodshot, and again Anderson felt a pang of helpless pity for a +dishonoured and miserable old age. + +"I'm sure you'll get on at Vancouver, father," he said gently. "And I +shall be there next week." + +His father growled some unintelligible answer. As Anderson went to the +door he again called after him angrily: "You were a d---- fool, George, +not to find those dibs." + +"What, for the mine?" Anderson laughed. "Oh, we'll go into that again at +Vancouver." + +McEwen made no reply, and Anderson left him. + +Anderson woke before seven. The long evening had passed into the dawn +with scarcely any darkness, and the sun was now high. He sprang up, and +dressed hastily. Going into the passage he saw to his astonishment that +while the door of the Ginnells' room was still closed, his father's was +wide open. He walked in. The room and the bed were empty. The contents +of a box carefully packed by Ginnell--mostly with new clothes--the night +before, were lying strewn about the room. But McEwen's old clothes were +gone, his gun and revolver, also his pipes and tobacco. + +Anderson roused Ginnell, and they searched the house and its +neighbourhood in vain. On going back into his own room, Anderson noticed +an open drawer. He had placed his pocketbook there the night before, but +without locking the drawer. It was gone, and in its place was a dirty +scrap of paper. + +"Don't you try chivvying me, George, for you won't get any good of it. +You let me alone, and I'll let you. You were a stingy fellow about that +money, so I've took some of it. Good-bye." + +Sick at heart, Anderson resumed the search, further afield. He sent +Ginnell along the line to make confidential inquiries. He telegraphed to +persons known to him at Golden, Revelstoke, Kamloops, Ashcroft, all to +no purpose. Twenty-four--thirty-six hours passed and nothing had been +heard of the fugitive. + +He felt himself baffled and tricked, with certain deep instincts and +yearnings wounded to the death. The brutal manner of his father's +escape--the robbery--the letter--had struck him hard. + +When Friday night came, and still no news, Anderson found himself at the +C.P.R. Hotel at Field. He was stupid with fatigue and depression. But +he had been in telephonic communication all the afternoon with Delaine +and Lady Merton at Lake Louise, as to their departure for the Pacific. +They knew nothing and should know nothing of his own catastrophe; their +plans should not suffer. + +He went out into the summer night to take breath, and commune with +himself. The night was balmy; the stars glorious. On a siding near the +hotel stood the private car which had arrived that evening from +Vancouver, and was to go to Laggan the following morning to fetch the +English party. They were to pick him up, on the return, at Field. + +He had failed to save his father, and his honest effort had been made in +vain. Humiliation and disappointment overshadowed him. Passionately, his +whole soul turned to Elizabeth. He did not yet grasp all the bearings of +what had happened. But he began to count the hours to the time when he +should see her. + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A day of showers and breaking clouds--of sudden sunlight, and broad +clefts of blue; a day when shreds of mist are lightly looped and meshed +about the higher peaks of the Rockies and the Selkirks, dividing the +forest world from the ice world above.... + +The car was slowly descending the Kicking Horse Pass, at the rear of a +heavy train. Elizabeth, on her platform, was feasting her eyes once more +on the great savage landscape, on these peaks and valleys that have +never till now known man, save as the hunter, treading them once or +twice perhaps in a century. Dreamily her mind contrasted them with the +Alps, where from all time man has laboured and sheltered, blending his +life, his births and deaths, his loves and hates with the glaciers and +the forests, wresting his food from the valleys, creeping height over +height to the snow line, writing his will on the country, so that in our +thought of it he stands first, and Nature second. The Swiss mountains +and streams breathe a "mighty voice," lent to them by the free passion +and aspiration of man; they are interfused and interwoven forever with +human fate. But in the Rockies and the Selkirks man counts for nothing +in their past; and, except as wayfarer and playfellow, it is probable +that he will count for nothing in their future. They will never be the +familiar companions of his work and prayer and love; a couple of +railways, indeed, will soon be driving through them, linking the life of +the prairies to the life of the Pacific; but, except for this conquest +of them as barriers in his path, when his summer camps in them are +struck, they, sheeted in a winter inaccessible and superb, know him and +his puny deeds no more, till again the lakes melt and the trees bud. +This it is that gives them their strange majesty, and clothes their +brief summer, their laughing fields of flowers, their thickets of red +raspberry and slopes of strawberry, their infinity of gleaming lakes and +foaming rivers--rivers that turn no mill and light no town--with a +charm, half magical, half mocking. + +And yet, though the travelled intelligence made comparisons of this +kind, it was not with the mountains that Elizabeth's deepest mind was +busy. She took really keener note of the railway itself, and its +appurtenances. For here man had expressed himself; had pitched his +battle with a fierce nature and won it; as no doubt he will win other +similar battles in the coming years. Through Anderson this battle had +become real to her. She looked eagerly at the construction camps in the +pass; at the new line that is soon to supersede the old; at the bridges +and tunnels and snow-sheds, by which contriving man had made his purpose +prevail over the physical forces of this wild world. The great railway +spoke to her in terms of human life; and because she had known Anderson +she understood its message. + +Secretly and sorely her thoughts clung to him. Just as, insensibly, her +vision of Canada had changed, so had her vision of Anderson. Canada was +no longer mere fairy tale and romance; Anderson was no longer merely its +picturesque exponent or representative. She had come to realise him as a +man, with a man's cares and passions; and her feelings about him had +begun to change her life. + +Arthur Delaine, she supposed, had meant to warn her that Mr. Anderson +was falling in love with her and that she had no right to encourage it. +Her thoughts went back intently over the last fortnight--Anderson's +absences--his partial withdrawal from the intimacy which had grown up +between himself and her--their last walk at Lake Louise. The delight of +that walk was still in her veins, and at last she was frank with +herself about it! In his attitude towards her, now that she forced +herself to face the truth, she must needs recognise a passionate +eagerness, restrained no less passionately; a profound impulse, strongly +felt, and strongly held back. By mere despair of attainment?--or by the +scruple of an honourable self-control? + +Could she--_could_ she marry a Canadian? There was the central question, +out at last!--irrevocable!--writ large on the mountains and the forests, +as she sped through them. Could she, possessed by inheritance of all +that is most desirable and delightful in English society, linked with +its great interests and its dominant class, and through them with the +rich cosmopolitan life of cultivated Europe--could she tear herself +from that old soil, and that dear familiar environment? Had the plant +vitality enough to bear transplanting? She did not put her question in +these terms; but that was what her sudden tumult and distress of mind +really meant. + +Looking up, she saw Delaine beside her. Well, there was Europe, and at +her feet! For the last month she had been occupied in scorning it. +English country-house life, artistic society and pursuits, London in the +season, Paris and Rome in the spring, English social and political +influence--there they were beside her. She had only to stretch out +her hand. + +A chill, uncomfortable laughter seemed to fill the inner mind through +which the debate passed, while all the time she was apparently looking +at the landscape, and chatting with her brother or Delaine. She fell +into an angry contempt for that mood of imaginative delight in which she +had journeyed through Canada so far. What! treat a great nation in the +birth as though it were there for her mere pleasure and entertainment? +Make of it a mere spectacle and pageant, and turn with disgust from the +notion that you, too, could ever throw in your lot with it, fight as a +foot-soldier in its ranks, on equal terms, for life and death! + +She despised herself. And yet--and yet! She thought of her mother--her +frail, refined, artistic mother; of a hundred subtleties and charms and +claims, in that world she understood, in which she had been reared; of +all that she must leave behind, were she asked, and did she consent, to +share the life of a Canadian of Anderson's type. What would it be to +fail in such a venture! To dare it, and then to find life sinking in +sands of cowardice and weakness! Very often, and sometimes as though by +design, Anderson had spoken to her of the part to be played by women in +Canada; not in the defensive, optimistic tone of their last walk +together, but forbiddingly, with a kind of rough insistence. Substantial +comfort, a large amount of applied science--that could be got. But the +elegancies and refinements of English rich life in a prairie +farm--impossible! A woman who marries a Canadian farmer, large or small, +must put her own hands to the drudgery of life, to the cooking, sewing, +baking, that keep man--animal man--alive. A certain amount of rude +service money can command in the Northwest; but it is a service which +only the housewife's personal coöperation can make tolerable. Life +returns, in fact, to the old primitive pattern; and a woman counts on +the prairie according as "she looketh well to the ways of her household +and eateth not the bread of idleness." + +Suddenly Elizabeth perceived her own hands lying on her lap. Useless +bejewelled things! When had they ever fed a man or nursed a child? + +Under her gauze veil she coloured fiercely. If the housewife, in her +primitive meaning and office, is vital to Canada, still more is the +house-mother. "Bear me sons and daughters; people my wastes!" seems to +be the cry of the land itself. Deep in Elizabeth's being there stirred +instincts and yearnings which life had so far stifled in her. She +shivered as though some voice, passionate and yet austere, spoke to her +from this great spectacle of mountain and water through which she +was passing. + + * * * * * + +"There he is!" cried Philip, craning his head to look ahead along the +train. + +Anderson stood waiting for them on the Field platform. Very soon he was +seated beside her, outside the car, while Philip lounged in the doorway, +and Delaine inside, having done his duty to the Kicking Horse Pass, was +devoting himself to a belated number of the "Athenæum" which had just +reached him. + +Philip had stored up a string of questions as to the hunting of goat in +the Rockies, and impatiently produced them. Anderson replied, but, as +Elizabeth immediately perceived, with a complete lack of his usual +animation. He spoke with effort, occasionally stumbling over his words. +She could not help looking at him curiously, and presently even Philip +noticed something wrong. + +"I say, Anderson!--what have you been doing to yourself? You look as +though you had been knocking up." + +"I have been a bit driven this week," said Anderson, with a start. "Oh, +nothing! You must look at this piece of line." + +And as they ran down the long ravine from Field to Golden, beside a +river which all the way seems to threaten the gliding train by the +savage force of its descent, he played the showman. The epic of the +C.P.R.--no one knew it better, and no one could recite it more +vividly than he. + +So also, as they left the Rockies behind; as they sped along the +Columbia between the Rockies to their right and the Selkirks to their +left; or as they turned away from the Columbia, and, on the flanks of +the Selkirks, began to mount that forest valley which leads to Roger's +Pass, he talked freely and well, exerting himself to the utmost. The +hopes and despairs, the endurances and ambitions of the first explorers +who ever broke into that fierce solitude, he could reproduce them; for, +though himself of a younger generation, yet by sympathy he had lived +them. And if he had not been one of the builders of the line, in the +incessant guardianship which preserves it from day to day, he had at one +time played a prominent part, battling with Nature for it, summer +and winter. + +Delaine, at last, came out to listen. Philip in the grip of his first +hero-worship, lay silent and absorbed, watching the face and gestures of +the speaker. Elizabeth sat with her eyes turned away from Anderson +towards the wild valley, as they rose and rose above it. She listened; +but her heart was full of new anxieties. What had happened to him? She +felt him changed. He was talking for their pleasure, by a strong effort +of will; that she realised. When could she get him alone?--her +friend!--who was clearly in distress. + +They approached the famous bridges on the long ascent. Yerkes came +running through the car to point out with pride the place where the +Grand Duchess had fainted beneath the terrors of the line. With only the +railing of their little platform between them and the abyss, they ran +over ravines hundreds of feet deep--the valley, a thousand feet sheer, +below. And in that valley, not a sign of house, of path; only black +impenetrable forest--huge cedars and Douglas pines, filling up the +bottoms, choking the river with their débris, climbing up the further +sides, towards the gleaming line of peaks. + +"It is a nightmare!" said Delaine involuntarily, looking round him. + +Elizabeth laughed, a bright colour in her cheeks. Again the wilderness +ran through her blood, answering the challenge of Nature. Faint!--she +was more inclined to sing or shout. And with the exhilaration, physical +and mental, that stole upon her, there mingled secretly, the first +thrill of passion she had ever known. Anderson sat beside her, once more +silent after his burst of talk. She was vividly conscious of him--of his +bare curly head--of certain lines of fatigue and suffering in the +bronzed face. And it was conveyed to her that, although he was clearly +preoccupied and sad, he was yet conscious of her in the same way. Once, +as they were passing the highest bridge of all, where, carried on a +great steel arch, that has replaced the older trestles, the rails run +naked and gleaming, without the smallest shred of wall or parapet, +across a gash in the mountain up which they were creeping, and at a +terrific height above the valley, Elizabeth, who was sitting with her +back to the engine, bent suddenly to one side, leaning over the little +railing and looking ahead--that she might if possible get a clearer +sight of Mount Macdonald, the giant at whose feet lies Roger's Pass. +Suddenly, as her weight pressed against the ironwork where only that +morning a fastening had been mended, she felt a grip on her arm. She +drew back, startled. + +"I beg your pardon!" said Anderson, smiling, but a trifle paler than +before. "I'm not troubled with nerves for myself, but--" + +He did not complete the sentence, and Elizabeth, could find nothing to +say. + +"Why, Elizabeth's not afraid!" cried Philip, scornfully. + +"This is Roger's Pass, and here we are at the top of the Selkirks," said +Anderson, rising. "The train will wait here some twenty minutes. Perhaps +you would like to walk about." + +They descended, all but Philip, who grumbled at the cold, wrapped +himself in a rug inside the car, and summoned Yerkes to bring him a cup +of coffee. + +On this height indeed, and beneath the precipices of Mount Macdonald, +which rise some five thousand feet perpendicularly above the railway, +the air was chill and the clouds had gathered. On the right, ran a line +of glacier-laden peaks, calling to their fellows across the pass. The +ravine itself, darkly magnificent, made a gulf of shadow out of which +rose glacier and snow slope, now veiled and now revealed by scudding +cloud. Heavy rain had not long since fallen on the pass; the small +stream, winding and looping through the narrow strip of desolate ground +which marks the summit, roared in flood through marshy growths of dank +weed and stunted shrub; and the noise reverberated from the mountain +walls, pressing straight and close on either hand. + +"Hark!" cried Elizabeth, standing still, her face and her light dress +beaten by the wind. + +A sound which was neither thunder nor the voice of the stream rose and +swelled and filled the pass. Another followed it. Anderson pointed to +the snowy crags of Mount Macdonald, and there, leaping from ledge to +ledge, they saw the summer avalanches descend, roaring as they came, +till they sank engulfed in a vaporous whirl of snow. + +Delaine tried to persuade Elizabeth to return to the car--in vain. He +himself returned thither for a warmer coat, and she and Anderson +walked on alone. + +"The Rockies were fine!--but the Selkirks are superb!" + +She smiled at him as she spoke, as though she thanked him personally for +the grandeur round them. Her slender form seemed to have grown in +stature and in energy. The mountain rain was on her fresh cheek and her +hair; a blue veil eddying round her head and face framed the brilliance +of her eyes. Those who had known Elizabeth in Europe would hardly have +recognised her here. The spirit of earth's wild and virgin places had +mingled with her spirit, and as she had grown in sympathy, so also she +had grown in beauty. Anderson looked at her from time to time in +enchantment, grudging every minute that passed. The temptation +strengthened to tell her his trouble. But how, or when? + +As he turned to her he saw that she, too, was gazing at him with an +anxious, wistful expression, her lips parted as though to speak. + +He bent over her. + +"What was that?" exclaimed Elizabeth, looking round her. + +They had passed beyond the station where the train was at rest. But the +sound of shouts pursued them. Anderson distinguished his own name. A +couple of railway officials had left the station and were hurrying +towards them. + +A sudden thought struck Anderson. He held up his hand with a gesture as +though to ask Lady Merton not to follow, and himself ran back to +the station. + +Elizabeth, from where she stood, saw the passengers all pouring out of +the train on to the platform. Even Philip emerged and waved to her. She +slowly returned, and meanwhile Anderson had disappeared. + +She found an excited crowd of travellers and a babel of noise. Delaine +hurried to her. + +It appeared that an extraordinary thing had happened. The train +immediately in front of them, carrying mail and express cars but no +passengers, had been "held up" by a gang of train-robbers, at a spot +between Sicamous junction and Kamloops. In order to break open the mail +van the robbers had employed a charge of dynamite, which had wrecked +the car and caused some damage to the line; enough to block the +permanent way for some hours. + +"And Philip has just opened this telegram for you." + +Delaine handed it to her. It was from the District Superintendent, +expressing great regret for the interruption to their journey, and +suggesting that they should spend the night at the hotel at Glacier. + +"Which I understand is only four miles off, the other side of the pass," +said Delaine. "Was there ever anything more annoying!" + +Elizabeth's face expressed an utter bewilderment. + +"A train held up in Canada--and on the C.P.R.--impossible!" + +An elderly man in front of her heard what she said, and turned upon her +a face purple with wrath. + +"You may well say that, madam! We are a law-abiding nation. We don't put +up with the pranks they play in Montana. They say the scoundrels have +got off. If we don't catch them, Canada's disgraced." + +"I say, Elizabeth," cried Philip, pushing his way to her through the +crowd, "there's been a lot of shooting. There's some Mounted Police +here, we picked up at Revelstoke, on their way to help catch these +fellows. I've been talking to them. The police from Kamloops came upon +them just as they were making off with a pretty pile--boxes full of +money for some of the banks in Vancouver. The police fired, so did the +robbers. One of the police was killed, and one of the thieves. Then the +rest got off. I say, let's go and help hunt them!" + +The boy's eyes danced with the joy of adventure. + +"If they've any sense they'll send bloodhounds after them," said the +elderly man, fiercely. "I helped catch a murderer with my own hands that +way, last summer, near the Arrow Lakes." + +"Where is Mr. Anderson?" + +The question escaped Elizabeth involuntarily. She had not meant to put +it. But it was curious that he should have left them in the lurch at +this particular moment. + +"Take your seats!" cried the station-master, making his way through the +crowded platform. "This train goes as far as Sicamous Junction only. Any +passenger who wishes to break his journey will find accommodation at +Glacier--next station." + +The English travellers were hurried back into their car. Still no sign +of Anderson. Yerkes was only able to tell them that he had seen +Anderson go into the station-master's private room with a couple of the +Mounted Police. He might have come out again, or he might not. Yerkes +had been too well occupied in exciting gossip with all his many +acquaintances in the train and the station to notice. + +The conductor went along through the train. Yerkes, standing on the +inside platform, called to him: + +"Have you seen Mr. Anderson?" + +The man shook his head, but another standing by, evidently an official +of some kind, looked round and ran up to the car. + +"I'm sorry, madam," he said, addressing Elizabeth, who was standing in +the doorway, "but Mr. Anderson isn't at liberty just now. He'll be +travelling with the police." + +And as he spoke a door in the station building opened, and Anderson came +out, accompanied by two constables of the Mounted Police and two or +three officials. They walked hurriedly along the train and got into an +empty compartment together. Immediately afterwards the train moved off. + +"Well, I wonder what's up now!" said Philip in astonishment. "Do you +suppose Anderson's got some clue to the men?" + +Delaine looked uncomfortably at Elizabeth. As an old adviser and +servant of the railway, extensively acquainted moreover with the +population--settled or occasional--of the district it was very natural +that Anderson should be consulted on such an event. And yet--Delaine had +caught a glimpse of his aspect on his way along the platform, and had +noticed that he never looked towards the car. Some odd conjectures ran +through his mind. + +Elizabeth sat silent, looking back on the grim defile the train was just +leaving. It was evident that they had passed the water-shed, and the +train was descending. In a few minutes they would be at Glacier. + +She roused herself to hold a rapid consultation over plans. + +They must of course do as they were advised, and spend the night at +Glacier. + + * * * * * + +The train drew up. + +"Well, of all the nuisances!"--cried Philip, disgusted, as they prepared +to leave the car. + +Yerkes, like the showman that he was, began to descant volubly on the +advantages and charms of the hotel, its Swiss guides, and the +distinguished travellers who stayed there; dragging rugs and bags +meanwhile out of the car. Nobody listened to him. Everybody in the +little party, as they stood forlornly on the platform, was in truth +searching for Anderson. + +And at last he came--hurrying along towards them. His face, set, +strained, and colourless, bore the stamp of calamity. But he gave them +no time to question him. + +"I am going on," he said hastily to Elizabeth; "they will look after you +here. I will arrange everything for you as soon as possible, and if we +don't meet before, perhaps--in Vancouver--" + +"I say, are you going to hunt the robbers?" asked Philip, catching his +arm. + +Anderson made no reply. He turned to Delaine, drew him aside a moment, +and put a letter into his hand. + +"My father was one of them," he said, without emotion, "and is dead. I +have asked you to tell Lady Merton." + +There was a call for him. The train was already moving. He jumped into +it, and was gone. + + + +CHAPTER XII + +The station and hotel at Sicamous Junction, overlooking the lovely Mara +lake, were full of people--busy officials of different kinds, or excited +on-lookers--when Anderson reached them. The long summer day was just +passing into a night that was rather twilight than darkness, and in the +lower country the heat was great. Far away to the north stretched the +wide and straggling waters of another and larger lake. Woods of poplar +and cottonwood grew along its swampy shore, and hills, forest clad, held +it in a shallow cup flooded with the mingled light of sunset and +moonlight. + +Anderson was met by a district superintendent, of the name of Dixon, as +he descended from the train. The young man, with whom he was slightly +acquainted, looked at him with excitement. + +"This is a precious bad business! If you can throw any light upon it, +Mr. Anderson, we shall be uncommonly obliged to you--" + +Anderson interrupted him. + +"Is the inquest to be held here?" + +"Certainly. The bodies were brought in a few hours ago." + +His companion pointed to a shed beyond the station. They walked thither, +the Superintendent describing in detail the attack on the train and the +measures taken for the capture of the marauders, Anderson listening in +silence. The affair had taken place early that morning, but the +telegraph wires had been cut in several places on both sides of the +damaged line, so that no precise news of what had happened had reached +either Vancouver on the west, or Golden on the east, till the afternoon. +The whole countryside was now in movement, and a vigorous man-hunt was +proceeding on both sides of the line. + +"There is no doubt the whole thing was planned by a couple of men from +Montana, one of whom was certainly concerned in the hold-up there a few +months ago and got clean away. But there were six or seven of them +altogether and most of the rest--we suspect--from this side of the +boundary. The old man who was killed"--Anderson raised his eyes abruptly +to the speaker--"seems to have come from Nevada. There were some +cuttings from a Nevada newspaper found upon him, besides the envelope +addressed to you, of which I sent you word at Roger's Pass. Could you +recognise anything in my description of the man? There was one thing I +forgot to say. He had evidently been in the doctor's hands lately. There +is a surgical bandage on the right ankle." + +"Was there nothing in the envelope?" asked Anderson, putting the +question aside, in spite of the evident eagerness of the questioner. + +"Nothing." + +"And where is it?" + +"It was given to the Kamloops coroner, who has just arrived." Anderson +said nothing more. They had reached the shed, which his companion +unlocked. Inside were two rough tables on trestles and lying on them two +sheeted forms. + +Dixon uncovered the first, and Anderson looked steadily down at the face +underneath. Death had wrought its strange ironic miracle once more, and +out of the face of an outcast had made the face of a sage. There was +little disfigurement; the eyes were closed with dignity; the mouth +seemed to have unlearnt its coarseness. Silently the tension of +Anderson's inner being gave way; he was conscious of a passionate +acceptance of the mere stillness and dumbness of death. + +"Where was the wound?" he asked, stooping over the body. + +"Ah, that was the strange thing! He didn't die of his wound at all! It +was a mere graze on the arm." The Superintendent pointed to a rent on +the coat-sleeve. "He died of something quite different--perhaps +excitement and a weak heart. There may have to be a post-mortem." + +"I doubt whether that will be necessary," said Anderson. + +The other looked at him with undisguised curiosity. + +"Then you do recognise him?" + +"I will tell the coroner what I know." + +Anderson drew back from his close examination of the dead face, and +began in his turn to question the Superintendent. Was it certain that +this man had been himself concerned in the hold-up and in the struggle +with the police? + +Dixon could not see how there could be any doubt of it. The constables +who had rushed in upon the gang while they were still looting the +express car--the brakesman having managed to get away and convey the +alarm to Kamloops--remembered seeing an old man with white hair, +apparently lame, at the rear of the more active thieves, and posted as +sentinel. He had been the first to give warning of the police approach, +and had levelled his revolver at the foremost constable but had missed +his shot. In the free firing which had followed nobody exactly knew what +had happened. One of the attacking force, Constable Brown, had fallen, +and while his comrades were attempting to save him, the thieves had +dropped down the steep bank of the river close by, into a boat waiting +for them, and got off. The constable was left dead upon the ground, and +not far from him lay the old man, also lifeless. But when they came to +examine the bodies, while the constable was shot through the head, the +other had received nothing but the trifling wound Dixon had already +pointed out. + +Anderson listened to the story in silence. Then with a last long look at +the rigid features below him, he replaced the covering. Passing on to +the other table, he raised the sheet from the face of a splendid young +Englishman, whom he had last seen the week before at Regina; an English +public-school boy of the manliest type, full of hope for himself, and of +enthusiasm, both for Canada and for the fine body of men in which he had +been just promoted. For the first time a stifled groan escaped from +Anderson's lips. What hand had done this murder? + +They left the shed. Anderson inquired what doctor had been sent for. He +recognised the name given as that of a Kamloops man whom he knew and +respected; and he went on to look for him at the hotel. + +For some time he and the doctor paced a trail beside the line together. +Among other facts that Anderson got from this conversation, he learnt +that the American authorities had been telegraphed to, and that a couple +of deputy sheriffs were coming to assist the Canadian police. They were +expected the following morning, when also the coroner's inquest would +be held. + +As to Anderson's own share in the interview, when the two men parted, +with a silent grasp of the hand, the Doctor had nothing to say to the +bystanders, except that Mr. Anderson would have some evidence to give on +the morrow, and that, for himself, he was not at liberty to divulge what +had passed between them. + +It was by this time late. Anderson shut himself up in his room at the +hotel; but among the groups lounging at the bar or in the neighbourhood +of the station excitement and discussion ran high. The envelope +addressed to Anderson, Anderson's own demeanour since his arrival on the +scene--with the meaning of both conjecture was busy. + + * * * * * + +Towards midnight a train arrived from Field. A messenger from the +station knocked at Anderson's door with a train letter. Anderson locked +the door again behind the man who had brought it, and stood looking at +it a moment in silence. It was from Lady Merton. He opened it slowly, +took it to the small deal table, which held a paraffin lamp, and sat +down to read it. + + "Dear Mr. Anderson--Mr. Delaine has given me your message and + read me some of your letter to him. He has also told me what + he knew before this happened--we understood that you wished + it. Oh! I cannot say how very sorry we are, Philip and I, for + your great trouble. It makes me sore at heart to think that + all the time you have been looking after us so kindly, taking + this infinite pains for us, you have had this heavy anxiety + on your mind. Oh, why didn't you tell me! I thought we were + to be friends. And now this tragedy! It is + terrible--terrible! Your father has been his own worst + enemy--and at last death has come,--and he has escaped + himself. Is there not some comfort in that? And you tried to + save him. I can imagine all that you have been doing and + planning for him. It is not lost, dear Mr. Anderson. No love + and pity are ever lost. They are undying--for they are God's + life in us. They are the pledge--the sign--to which He is + eternally bound. He will surely, surely, redeem--and fulfil. + + "I write incoherently, for they are waiting for my letter. I + want you to write to me, if you will. And when will you come + back to us? We shall, I think, be two or three days here, for + Philip has made friends with a man we have met here--a + surveyor, who has been camping high up, and shooting wild + goat. He is determined to go for an expedition with him, and + I had to telegraph to the Lieutenant-Governor to ask him not + to expect us till Thursday. So if you were to come back here + before then you would still find us. I don't know that I + could be of any use to you, or any consolation to you. But, + indeed, I would try. + + "To-morrow I am told will be the inquest. My thoughts will be + with you constantly. By now you will have determined on your + line of action. I only know that it will be noble and + upright--like yourself. + + "I remain, yours most sincerely" + + "ELIZABETH MERTON." + +Anderson pressed the letter to his lips. Its tender philosophising found +no echo in his own mind. But it soothed, because it came from her. + +He lay dressed and wakeful on his bed through the night, and at nine +next morning the inquest opened, in the coffee-room of the hotel. + +The body of the young constable was first identified. As to the hand +which had fired the shot that killed him, there was no certain evidence; +one of the police had seen the lame man with the white hair level his +revolver again after the first miss; but there was much shooting going +on, and no one could be sure from what quarter the fatal bullet +had come. + +The court then proceeded to the identification of the dead robber. The +coroner, a rancher who bred the best horses in the district, called +first upon two strangers in plain clothes, who had arrived by the first +train from the South that morning. They proved to be the two officers +from Nevada. They had already examined the body, and they gave clear and +unhesitating evidence, identifying the old man as one Alexander McEwen, +well known to the police of the silver-mining State as a lawless and +dangerous character. He had been twice in jail, and had been the +associate of the notorious Bill Symonds in one or two criminal affairs +connected with "faked" claims and the like. The elder of the two +officers in particular drew a vivid and damning picture of the man's +life and personality, of the cunning with which he had evaded the law, +and the ruthlessness with which he had avenged one or two +private grudges. + +"We have reason to suppose," said the American officer finally, "that +McEwen was not originally a native of the States. We believe that he +came from Dawson City or the neighbourhood about ten years ago, and that +he crossed the border in consequence of a mysterious affair--which has +never been cleared up--in which a rich German gentleman, Baron von +Aeschenbach, disappeared, and has not been heard of since. Of that, +however, we have no proof, and we cannot supply the court with any +information as to the man's real origin and early history. But we are +prepared to swear that the body we have seen this morning is that of +Alexander McEwen, who for some years past has been well known to us, now +in one camp, now in another, of the Comstock district." + +The American police officer resumed his seat. George Anderson, who was +to the right of the coroner, had sat, all through this witness's +evidence, bending forward, his eyes on the ground, his hands clasped +between his knees. There was something in the rigidity of his attitude, +which gradually compelled the attention of the onlookers, as though the +perception gained ground that here--in that stillness--those bowed +shoulders--lay the real interest of this sordid outrage, which had so +affronted the pride of Canada's great railway. + +The coroner rose. He briefly expressed the thanks of the court to the +Nevada State authorities for having so promptly supplied the information +in their possession in regard to this man McEwen. He would now ask Mr. +George Anderson, of the C.P.R., whether he could in any way assist the +court in this investigation. An empty envelope, fully addressed to Mr. +George Anderson, Ginnell's Boarding House, Laggan, Alberta, had, +strangely enough, been found in McEwen's pocket. Could Mr. Anderson +throw any light upon the matter? + +Anderson stood up as the coroner handed him the envelope. He took it, +looked at it, and slowly put it down on the table before him. He was +perfectly composed, but there was that in his aspect which instantly +hushed all sounds in the crowded room, and drew the eyes of everybody in +it upon him. The Kamloops doctor looked at him from a distance with a +sudden twitching smile--the smile of a reticent man in whom strong +feeling must somehow find a physical expression. Dixon, the young +Superintendent, bent forward eagerly. At the back of the room a group of +Japanese railway workers, with their round, yellow faces and half-opened +eyes stared impassively at the tall figure of the fair-haired Canadian; +and through windows and doors, thrown open to the heat, shimmered lake +and forest, the eternal background of Canada. + +"Mr. Coroner," said Anderson, straightening himself to his full height, +"the name of the man into whose death you are inquiring is not Alexander +McEwen. He came from Scotland to Manitoba in 1869. His real name was +Robert Anderson, and I--am his son." + +The coroner gave an involuntary "Ah!" of amazement, which was echoed, it +seemed, throughout the room. + +On one of the small deal tables belonging to the coffee-room, which had +been pushed aside to make room for the sitting of the court, lay the +newspapers of the morning--the _Vancouver Sentinel_ and the _Montreal +Star_. Both contained short and flattering articles on the important +Commission entrusted to Mr. George Anderson by the Prime Minister. "A +great compliment to so young a man," said the _Star_, "but one amply +deserved by Mr. Anderson's record. We look forward on his behalf to a +brilliant career, honourable both to himself and to Canada." + +Several persons had already knocked at Anderson's door early that +morning in order to congratulate him; but without finding him. And this +honoured and fortunate person--? + +Men pushed each other forward in their eagerness not to lose a word, or +a shade of expression on the pale face which confronted them. + +Anderson, after a short pause, as though to collect himself, gave the +outlines of his father's early history, of the farm in Manitoba, the +fire and its consequences, the breach between Robert Anderson and his +sons. He described the struggle of the three boys on the farm, their +migration to Montreal in search of education, and his own later sojourn +in the Yukon, with the evidence which had convinced him of his +father's death. + +"Then, only a fortnight ago, he appeared at Laggan and made himself +known to me, having followed me apparently from Winnipeg. He seemed to +be in great poverty, and in bad health. If he had wished it, I was +prepared to acknowledge him; but he seemed not to wish it; there were no +doubt reasons why he preferred to keep his assumed name. I did what I +could for him, and arrangements had been made to put him with decent +people at Vancouver. But last Wednesday night he disappeared from the +boarding house where he and I were both lodging, and various persons +here will know"--he glanced at one or two faces in the ring before +him--"that I have been making inquiries since, with no result. As to +what or who led him into this horrible business, I know nothing. The +Nevada deputies have told you that he was acquainted with Symonds--a +fact unknown to me--and I noticed on one or two occasions that he seemed +to have acquaintances among the men tramping west to the Kootenay +district. I can only imagine that after his success in Montana last +year, Symonds made up his mind to try the same game on the C.P.R., and +that during the last fortnight he came somehow into communication with +my father. My father must have been aware of Symonds's plans--and may +have been unable at the last to resist the temptation to join in the +scheme. As to all that I am entirely in the dark." + +He paused, and then, looking down, he added, under his breath, as though +involuntarily--"I pray--that he may not have been concerned in the +murder of poor Brown. But there is--I think--no evidence to connect him +with it. I shall be glad to answer to the best of my power any questions +that the court may wish to put." + +He sat down heavily, very pale, but entirely collected. The room watched +him a moment, and then a friendly, encouraging murmur seemed to rise +from the crowd--to pass from them to Anderson. + +The coroner, who was an old friend of Anderson's, fidgeted a little and +in silence. He took off his glasses and put them on again. His tanned +face, long and slightly twisted, with square harsh brows, and powerful +jaw set in a white fringe of whisker, showed an unusual amount of +disturbance. At last he said, clearing his throat: "We are much obliged +to you, Mr. Anderson, for your frankness towards this court. There's +not a man here that don't feel for you, and don't wish to offer you his +respectful sympathy. We know you--and I reckon we know what to think +about you. Gentlemen," he spoke with nasal deliberation, looking round +the court, "I think that's so?" + +A shout of consent--the shout of men deeply moved--went up. Anderson, +who had resumed his former attitude, appeared to take no notice, and the +coroner resumed. + +"I will now call on Mrs. Ginnell to give her evidence." + +The Irishwoman rose with alacrity--what she had to say held the +audience. The surly yet good-hearted creature was divided between her +wish to do justice to the demerits of McEwen, whom she had detested, and +her fear of hurting Anderson's feelings in public. Beneath her rough +exterior, she carried some of the delicacies of Celtic feeling, and she +had no sooner given some fact that showed the coarse dishonesty of the +father, than she veered off in haste to describe the pathetic efforts of +the son. Her homely talk told; the picture grew. + +Meanwhile Anderson sat impatient or benumbed, annoyed with Mrs. +Ginnell's garrulity, and longing for the whole thing to end. He had a +letter to write to Ottawa before post-time. + +When the verdicts had been given, the doctor and he walked away from +the court together. The necessary formalities were carried through, a +coffin ordered, and provision made for the burial of Robert Anderson. As +the two men passed once or twice through the groups now lounging and +smoking as before outside the hotel, all conversation ceased, and all +eyes followed Anderson. Sincere pity was felt for him; and at the same +time men asked each other anxiously how the revelation would affect his +political and other chances. + +Late in the same evening the burial of McEwen took place. A +congregational minister at the graveside said a prayer for mercy on the +sinner. Anderson had not asked him to do it, and felt a dull resentment +of the man's officiousness, and the unctious length of his prayer. Half +an hour later he was on the platform, waiting for the train to Glacier. + +He arrived there in the first glorious dawn of a summer morning. Over +the vast Illecillowaet glacier rosy feather-clouds were floating in a +crystal air, beneath a dome of pale blue. Light mists rose from the +forests and the course of the river, and above them shone the dazzling +snows, the hanging glaciers, and glistening rock faces, ledge piled on +ledge, of the Selkirk giants--Hermit and Tupper, Avalanche and Sir +Donald--with that cleft of the pass between. + +The pleasant hotel, built to offer as much shelter and comfort as +possible to the tired traveller and climber, was scarcely awake. A +sleepy-eyed Japanese showed Anderson to his room. He threw himself on +the bed, longing for sleep, yet incapable of it. He was once more under +the same roof with Elizabeth Merton--and for the last time! He longed +for her presence, her look, her touch; and yet with equal intensity he +shrank from seeing her. That very morning through the length of Canada +and the States would go out the news of the train-robbery on the main +line of the C.P.R., and with it the "dramatic" story of himself and his +father, made more dramatic by a score of reporters. And as the news of +his appointment, in the papers of the day before, had made him a public +person, and had been no doubt telegraphed to London and Europe, so also +would it be with the news of the "hold-up," and his own connection with +it; partly because it had happened on the C.P.R.; still more because of +the prominence given to his name the day before. + +He felt himself a disgraced man; and he had already put from him all +thought of a public career. Yet he wondered, not without self-contempt, +as he lay there in the broadening light, what it was in truth that made +the enormous difference between this Monday and the Monday before. His +father was dead, and had died in the very commission of a criminal act. +But all or nearly all that Anderson knew now about his character he had +known before this happened. The details given by the Nevada officers +were indeed new to him; but he had shrewdly suspected all along that the +record, did he know it, would be something like that. If such a +parentage in itself involves stain and degradation, the stain and +degradation had been always there, and the situation, looked at +philosophically, was no worse for the catastrophe which had intervened +between this week and last. + +And yet it was of course immeasurably worse! Such is the "bubble +reputation"--the difference between the known and the unknown. + +At nine o'clock a note was brought to his room: + + "Will you breakfast with me in half an hour? You will find me + alone. + + "E.M." + +Before the clock struck the half-hour, Elizabeth was already waiting for +her guest, listening for every sound. She too had been awake half +the night. + +When he came in she went up to him, with her quick-tripping step, +holding out both her hands; and he saw that her eyes were full of tears. + +"I am so--so sorry!" was all she could say. He looked into her eyes, +and as her hands lay in his he stooped suddenly and kissed them. There +was a great piteousness in his expression, and she felt through every +nerve the humiliation and the moral weariness which oppressed him. +Suddenly she recalled that first moment of intimacy between them when he +had so brusquely warned her about Philip, and she had been wounded by +his mere strength and fearlessness; and it hurt her to realise the +contrast between that strength and this weakness. + +She made him sit down beside her in the broad window of her little +sitting-room, which over-looked the winding valley with the famous loops +of the descending railway, and the moving light and shade on the forest; +and very gently and tenderly she made him tell her all the story from +first to last. + +His shrinking passed away, soothed by her sweetness, her restrained +emotion, and after a little he talked with freedom, gradually recovering +his normal steadiness and clearness of mind. + +At the same time she perceived some great change in him. The hidden +spring of melancholy in his nature, which, amid all his practical +energies and activities, she had always discerned, seemed to have +overleaped its barriers, and to be invading the landmarks of character. + +At the end of his narrative he said something in a hurried, low voice +which gave her a clue. + +"I did what I could to help him--but my father hated me. He died hating +me. Nothing I could do altered him. Had he reason? When my brother and I +in our anger thought we were avenging our mother's death, were we in +truth destroying him also--driving him into wickedness beyond hope? Were +we--was I--for I was the eldest--responsible? Does his death, moral and +physical, lie at my door?" + +He raised his eyes to her--his tired appealing eyes--and Elizabeth +realised sharply how deep a hold such questionings take on such a man. +She tried to argue with and comfort him--and he seemed to absorb, to +listen--but in the middle of it, he said abruptly, as though to change +the subject: + +"And I confess the publicity has hit me hard. It may be cowardly, but I +can't face it for a while. I think I told you I owned some land in +Saskatchewan. I shall go and settle down on it at once." + +"And give up your appointment--your public life?" she cried in dismay. + +He smiled at her faintly, as though trying to console her. + +"Yes; I shan't be missed, and I shall do better by myself. I understand +the wheat and the land. They are friends that don't fail one." + +Elizabeth flushed. + +"Mr. Anderson!--you mustn't give up your work. Canada asks it of you." + +"I shall only be changing my work. A man can do nothing better for +Canada than break up land." + +"You can do that--and other things besides. Please--please--do nothing +rash!" + +She bent over to him, her brown eyes full of entreaty, her hand laid +gently, timidly on his. + +He could not bear to distress her--but he must. + +"I sent in my resignation yesterday to the Prime Minister." + +The delicate face beside him clouded. + +"He won't accept it." + +Anderson shook his head. "I think he must." + +Elizabeth looked at him in despair. + +"Oh! no. You oughtn't to do this--indeed, indeed you oughtn't. It is +cowardly--forgive me!--unworthy of you. Oh! can't you see how the +sympathy of everybody who knows--everybody whose opinion you care for--" + +She stopped a moment, colouring deeply, checked indeed by the thought of +a conversation between herself and Philip of the night before. Anderson +interrupted her: + +"The sympathy of one person," he said hoarsely, "is very precious to +me. But even for her--" + +She held out her hands to him again imploringly-- + +"Even for her?--" + +But instead of taking the hands he rose and went out on the balcony a +moment, as though to look at the great view. Then he returned, and +stood over her. + +"Lady Merton, I am afraid--it's no use. We are not--we can't +be--friends." + +"Not friends?" she said, her lip quivering. "I thought I--" + +He looked down steadily on her upturned face. His own spoke eloquently +enough. Turning her head away, with fluttering breath, she began to +speak fast and brokenly: + +"I, too, have been very lonely. I want a friend whom I might help--who +would help me. Why should you refuse? We are not either of us quite +young; what we undertook we could carry through. Since my husband's +death I--I have been playing at life. I have always been hungry, +dissatisfied, discontented. There were such splendid things going on in +the world, and I--I was just marking time. Nothing to do!--as much money +as I could possibly want--society of course--travelling--and +visiting--and amusing myself--but oh! so tired all the time. And +somehow Canada has been a great revelation of real, strong, living +things--this great Northwest--and you, who seemed to explain it to me--" + +"Dear Lady Merton!" His tone was low and full of emotion. And this time +it was he who stooped and took her unresisting hands in his. She went on +in the same soft, pleading tone-- + +"I felt what it might be--to help in the building up a better human +life--in this vast new country. God has given to you this task--such a +noble task!--and through your friendship, I too seemed to have a little +part in it, if only by sympathy. Oh, no! you mustn't turn back--you +mustn't shrink--because of what has happened to you. And let me, from a +distance, watch and help. It will ennoble my life, too. Let me!"--she +smiled--"I shall make a good friend, you'll see. I shall write very +often. I shall argue--and criticise--and want a great deal of +explaining. And you'll come over to us, and do splendid work, and make +many English friends. Your strength will all come back to you." + +He pressed the hands he held more closely. + +"It is like you to say all this--but--don't let us deceive ourselves. I +could not be your friend, Lady Merton. I must not come and see you." + +She was silent, very pale, her eyes on his--and he went on: + +"It is strange to say it in this way, at such a moment; but it seems as +though I had better say it. I have had the audacity, you see--to fall in +love with you. And if it was audacity a week ago, you can guess what it +is now--now when--Ask your mother and brother what they would think of +it!" he said abruptly, almost fiercely. + +There was a moment's silence. All consciousness, all feeling in each of +these two human beings had come to be--with the irrevocable swiftness of +love--a consciousness of the other. Under the sombre renouncing passion +of his look, her own eyes filled slowly--beautifully--with tears. And +through all his perplexity and pain there shot a thrill of joy, of +triumph even, sharp and wonderful. He understood. All this might have +been his--this delicate beauty, this quick will, this rare +intelligence--and yet the surrender in her aspect was not the simple +surrender of love; he knew before she spoke that she did not pretend to +ignore the obstacles between them; that she was not going to throw +herself upon his renunciation, trying vehemently to break it down, in a +mere blind girlish impulsiveness. He realised at once her heart, and her +common sense; and was grateful to her for both. + +Gently she drew herself away, drawing a long breath. "My mother and +brother would not decide those things for me--oh, _never_!--I should +decide them for myself. But we are not going to talk of them to-day. We +are not going to make any--any rash promises to each other. It is you we +must think for--your future--your life. And then--if you won't give me a +friend's right to speak--you will be unkind--and I shall respect +you less." + +She threw back her little head with vivacity. In the gesture he saw the +strength of her will and his own wavered. + +"How can it be unkind?" he protested. "You ought not to be troubled with +me any more." + +"Let me be judge of that. If you will persist in giving up this +appointment, promise me at least to come to England. That will break +this spell of this--this terrible thing, and give you courage--again. +Promise me!" + +"No, no!--you are too good to me--too good;--let it end here. It is +much, much better so." + +Then she broke down a little. + +She looked round her, like some hurt creature seeking a means of escape. +Her lips trembled. She gave a low cry. "And I have loved Canada so! I +have been so happy here." + +"And now I have hurt you?--I have spoilt everything?" + +"It is your unhappiness does that--and that you will spoil your life. +Promise me only this one thing--to come to England! Promise me!" + +He sat down in a quiet despair that she would urge him so. A long +argument followed between them, and at last she wore him down. She dared +say nothing more of the Commissionership; but he promised her to come to +England some time in the following winter; and with that she had to +be content. + +Then she gave him breakfast. During their conversation, which Elizabeth +guided as far as possible to indifferent topics, the name of Mariette +was mentioned. He was still, it seemed, at Vancouver. Elizabeth gave +Anderson a sudden look, and casually, without his noticing, she +possessed herself of the name of Mariette's hotel. + +At breakfast also she described, with a smile and sigh, her brother's +first and last attempt to shoot wild goat in the Rockies, an expedition +which had ended in a wetting and a chill--"luckily nothing much; but +poor Philip won't be out of his room to-day." + +"I will go and see him," said Anderson, rising. + +Elizabeth looked up, her colour fluttering. + +"Mr. Anderson, Philip is only a boy, and sometimes a foolish boy--" + +"I understand," said Anderson quietly, after a moment. "Philip thinks +his sister has been running risks. Who warned him?" + +Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders without replying. He saw a touch of +scorn in her face that was new to him. + +"I think I guess," he said. "Why not? It was the natural thing. So Mr. +Delaine is still here?" + +"Till to-morrow." + +"I am glad. I shall like to assure him that his name was not +mentioned--he was not involved at all!" + +Elizabeth's lip curled a little, but she said nothing. During the +preceding forty-eight hours there had been passages between herself and +Delaine that she did not intend Anderson to know anything about. In his +finical repugnance to soiling his hands with matters so distasteful, +Delaine had carried out the embassy which Anderson had perforce +entrusted to him in such a manner as to rouse in Elizabeth a maximum of +pride on her own account, and of indignation on Anderson's. She was not +even sorry for him any more; being, of course, therein a little unjust +to him, as was natural to a high-spirited and warm-hearted woman. + +Anderson, meanwhile, went off to knock at Philip's door, and Philip's +sister was left behind to wonder nervously how Philip would behave and +what he would say. She was still smarting under the boy's furious +outburst of the night before when, through a calculated indiscretion of +Delaine's, the notion that Anderson had presumed and might still presume +to set his ambitions on Elizabeth had been presented to him for the +first time. + +"My sister marry a mining engineer!--with a drunken old robber for a +father! By Jove! Anybody talking nonsense of that kind will jolly well +have to reckon with me! Elizabeth!--you may say what you like, but I am +the head of the family!" + +Anderson found the head of the family in bed, surrounded by novels, and +a dozen books on big-game shooting in the Rockies. Philip received him +with an evident and ungracious embarrassment. + +"I am awfully sorry--beastly business. Hard lines on you, of +course--very. Hope they'll get the men." + +"Thank you. They are doing their best." + +Anderson sat down beside the lad. The fragility of his look struck him +painfully, and the pathetic contrast between it and the fretting +spirit--the books of travel and adventure heaped round him. + +"Have you been ill again?" he asked in his kind, deep voice. + +"Oh, just a beastly chill. Elizabeth would make me take too many wraps. +Everyone knows you oughtn't to get overheated walking." + +"Do you want to stay on here longer?" + +"Not I! What do I care about glaciers and mountains and that sort of +stuff if I can't hunt? But Elizabeth's got at the doctor somehow, and he +won't let me go for three or four days unless I kick over the traces. I +daresay I shall." + +"No you won't--for your sister's sake. I'll see all arrangements are +made." + +Philip made no direct reply. He lay staring at the ceiling--till at last +he said-- + +"Delaine's going. He's going to-morrow. He gets on Elizabeth's nerves." + +"Did he say anything to you about me?" said Anderson. + +Philip flushed. + +"Well, I daresay he did." + +"Make your mind easy, Gaddesden. A man with my story is not going to ask +your sister to marry him." + +Philip looked up. Anderson sat composedly erect, the traces of his +nights of sleeplessness and revolt marked on every feature, but as much +master of himself and his life--so Gaddesden intuitively felt--as he had +ever been. A movement of remorse and affection stirred in the young man +mingled with the strength of other inherited things. + +"Awfully sorry, you know," he said clumsily, but this time sincerely. "I +don't suppose it makes any difference to you that your father--well, I'd +better not talk about it. But you see--Elizabeth might marry anybody. +She might have married heaps of times since Merton died, if she hadn't +been such an icicle. She's got lots of money, and--well, I don't want to +be snobbish--but at home--we--our family--" + +"I understand," said Anderson, perhaps a little impatiently--"you are +great people. I understood that all along." + +Family pride cried out in Philip. "Then why the deuce--" But he said +aloud in some confusion, "I suppose that sounded disgusting"--then +floundering deeper--"but you see--well, I'm very fond of Elizabeth!" + +Anderson rose and walked to the window which commanded a view of the +railway line. + +"I see the car outside. I'll go and have a few words with Yerkes." + +The boy let him go in silence--conscious on the one hand that he had +himself played a mean part in their conversation, and on the other that +Anderson, under this onset of sordid misfortune, was somehow more of a +hero in his eyes, and no doubt in other people's, than ever. + +On his way downstairs Anderson ran into Delaine, who was ascending with +an armful of books and pamphlets. + +"Oh, how do you do? Had only just heard you were here. May I have a word +with you?" + +Anderson remounted the stairs in silence, and the two men paused, seeing +no one in sight, in the corridor beyond. + +"I have just read the report of the inquest, and should like to offer +you my sincere sympathy and congratulations on your very straightforward +behaviour--" Anderson made a movement. Delaine went on hurriedly-- + +"I should like also to thank you for having kept my name out of it." + +"There was no need to bring it in," said Anderson coldly. + +"No of course not--of course not! I have also seen the news of your +appointment. I trust nothing will interfere with that." + +Anderson turned towards the stairs again. He was conscious of a keen +antipathy--the antipathy of tired nerves--to the speaker's mere aspect, +his long hair, his too picturesque dress, the antique on his little +finger, the effeminate stammer in his voice. + +"Are you going to-day? What train?" he said, in a careless voice as he +moved away. + +Delaine drew back, made a curt reply, and the two men parted. + +"Oh, he'll get over it; there will very likely be nothing to get over," +Delaine reflected tartly, as he made his way to his room. "A new country +like this can't be too particular." He was thankful, at any rate, that +he would have an opportunity before long--for he was going straight home +and to Cumberland--of putting Mrs. Gaddesden on her guard. "I may be +thought officious; Lady Merton let me see very plainly that she thinks +me so--but I shall do my duty nevertheless." + +And as he stood over his packing, bewildering his valet with a number of +precise and old-maidish directions, his sore mind ran alternately on the +fiasco of his own journey and on the incredible folly of nice women. + +Delaine departed; and for two days Elizabeth ministered to Anderson. She +herself went strangely through it, feeling between them, as it were, +the bared sword of his ascetic will--no less than her own terrors and +hesitations. But she set herself to lift him from the depths; and as +they walked about the mountains and the forests, in a glory of summer +sunshine, the sanity and sweetness of her nature made for him a +spiritual atmosphere akin in its healing power to the influence of pine +and glacier upon his physical weariness. + +On the second evening, Mariette walked into the hotel. Anderson, who had +just concluded all arrangements for the departure of the car with its +party within forty-eight hours, received him with astonishment. + +"What brings you here?" + +Mariette's harsh face smiled at him gravely. + +"The conviction that if I didn't come, you would be committing a folly." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Giving up your Commissionership, or some nonsense of that sort." + +"I have given it up." + +"H'm! Anything from Ottawa yet?" + +It was impossible, Anderson pointed out, that there should be any letter +for another three days. But he had written finally and did not mean to +be over-persuaded. + +Mariette at once carried him off for a walk and attacked him +vigorously. "Your private affairs have nothing whatever to do with your +public work. Canada wants you--you must go." + +"Canada can easily get hold of a Commissioner who would do her more +credit," was the bitter reply. "A man's personal circumstances are part +of his equipment. They must not be such as to injure his mission." + +Mariette argued in vain. + +As they were both dining in the evening with Elizabeth and Philip, a +telegram was brought in for Anderson from the Prime Minister. It +contained a peremptory and flattering refusal to accept his resignation. +"Nothing has occurred which affects your public or private character. My +confidence quite unchanged. Work is best for yourself, and the public +expects it of you. Take time to consider, and wire me in two days." + +Anderson thrust it into his pocket, and was only with difficulty +persuaded to show it to Mariette. + +But in the course of the evening many letters arrived--letters of +sympathy from old friends in Quebec and Manitoba, from colleagues and +officials, from navvies and railwaymen, even, on the C.P.R., from his +future constituents in Saskatchewan--drawn out by the newspaper reports +of the inquest and of Anderson's evidence. For once the world rallied to +a good man in distress! and Anderson was strangely touched and +overwhelmed by it. + +He passed an almost sleepless night, and in the morning as he met +Elizabeth on her balcony he said to her, half reproachfully, pointing to +Mariette below-- + +"It was you sent for him." + +Elizabeth smiled. + +"A woman knows her limitations! It is harder to refuse two than one." + +For twenty-four hours the issue remained uncertain. Letters continued to +pour in; Mariette applied the plain-spoken, half-scornful arguments +natural to a man holding a purely spiritual standard of life; and +Elizabeth pleaded more by look and manner than by words. + +Anderson held out as long as he could. He was assaulted by that dark +midway hour of manhood, that distrust of life and his own powers, which +disables so many of the world's best men in these heightened, hurrying +days. But in the end his two friends saved him--as by fire. + +Mariette himself dictated the telegram to the Prime Minister in which +Anderson withdrew his resignation; and then, while Anderson, with a +fallen countenance, carried it to the post, the French Canadian and +Elizabeth looked at each other--in a common exhaustion and relief. + +"I feel a wreck," said Elizabeth. "Monsieur, you are an excellent +ally." And she held out her hand to her colleague. Mariette took it, and +bowed over it with the air of a _grand seigneur_ of 1680. + +"The next step must be yours, madam--if you really take an interest in +our friend." + +Elizabeth rather nervously inquired what it might be. + +"Find him a wife!--a good wife. He was not made to live alone." + +His penetrating eyes in his ugly well-bred face searched the features of +his companion. Elizabeth bore it smiling, without flinching. + +A fortnight passed--and Elizabeth and Philip were on their way home +through the heat of July. Once more the railway which had become their +kind familiar friend sped them through the prairies, already whitening +to the harvest, through the Ontarian forests and the Ottawa valley. The +wheat was standing thick on the illimitable earth; the plains in their +green or golden dress seemed to laugh and sing under the hot dome of +sky. Again the great Canadian spectacle unrolled itself from west to +east, and the heart Elizabeth brought to it was no longer the heart of a +stranger. The teeming Canadian life had become interwoven with her life; +and when Anderson came to bid her a hurried farewell on the platform at +Regina, she carried the passionate memory of his face with her, as the +embodiment and symbol of all that she had seen and felt. + +Then her thoughts turned to England, and the struggle before her. She +braced herself against the Old World as against an enemy. But her spirit +failed her when she remembered that in Anderson himself she was like to +find her chiefest foe. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"What about the shooters, Wilson? I suppose they'll be in directly?" + +"They're just finishing the last beat, ma'am. Shall I bring in tea?" + +Mrs. Gaddesden assented, and then leaving her seat by the fire she moved +to the window to see if she could discover any signs in the wintry +landscape outside of Philip and his shooting party. As she did so she +heard a rattle of distant shots coming from a point to her right beyond +the girdling trees of the garden. But she saw none of the shooters--only +two persons, walking up and down the stone terrace outside, in the glow +of the November sunset. One was Elizabeth, the other a tall, ungainly, +yet remarkable figure, was a Canadian friend of Elizabeth's, who had +only arrived that forenoon--M. Félix Mariette, of Quebec. According to +Elizabeth, he had come over to attend a Catholic Congress in London. +Mrs. Gaddesden understood that he was an Ultramontane, and that she was +not to mention to him the word "Empire." She knew also that Elizabeth +had made arrangements with a neighbouring landowner, who was also a +Catholic, that he should be motored fifteen miles to Mass on the +following morning, which was Sunday; and her own easy-going Anglican +temper, which carried her to the parish church about twelve times a +year, had been thereby a good deal impressed. + +How well those furs became Elizabeth! It was a chill frosty evening, and +Elizabeth's slight form was wrapped in the sables which had been one of +poor Merton's earliest gifts to her. The mother's eye dwelt with an +habitual pride on the daughter's grace of movement and carriage. "She is +always so distinguished," she thought, and then checked herself by the +remembrance that she was applying to Elizabeth an adjective that +Elizabeth particularly disliked. Nevertheless, Mrs. Gaddesden knew very +well what she herself meant by it. She meant something--some quality in +Elizabeth, which was always provoking in her mother's mind despairing +comparisons between what she might make of her life and what she was +actually making, or threatening to make of it. + +Alas, for that Canadian journey--that disastrous Canadian journey! Mrs. +Gaddesden's thoughts, as she watched the two strollers outside, were +carried back to the moment in early August when Arthur Delaine had +reappeared in her drawing-room, three weeks before Elizabeth's return, +and she had gathered from his cautious and stammering revelations what +kind of man it was who seemed to have established this strange hold on +her daughter. Delaine, she thought, had spoken most generously of +Elizabeth and his own disappointment, and most kindly of this +Mr. Anderson. + +"I know nothing against him personally--nothing! No doubt a very +estimable young fellow, with just the kind of ability that will help him +in Canada. Lady Merton, I imagine, will have told you of the sad events +in which we found him involved?" + +Mrs. Gaddesden had replied that certainly Elizabeth had told her the +whole story, so far as it concerned Mr. Anderson. She pointed to the +letters beside her. + +"But you cannot suppose," had been her further indignant remark, "that +Elizabeth would ever dream of marrying him!" + +"That, my dear old friend, is for her mother to find out," Delaine had +replied, not without a touch of venom. "I can certainly assure you that +Lady Merton is deeply interested in this young man, and he in her." + +"Elizabeth--exiling herself in Canada--burying herself on the +prairies--when she might have everything here--the best of +everything--at her feet. It is inconceivable!" + +Delaine had agreed that it was inconceivable, and they had mourned +together over the grotesque possibilities of life. "But you will save +her," he had said at last. "You will save her! You will point out to her +all she would be giving up--the absurdity, the really criminal waste +of it!" + +On which he had gloomily taken his departure for an archæological +congress at Berlin, and an autumn in Italy; and a few weeks later she +had recovered her darling Elizabeth, paler and thinner than before--and +quite, quite incomprehensible! + +As for "saving" her, Mrs. Gaddesden had not been allowed to attempt it. +In the first place, Elizabeth had stoutly denied that there was anything +to save her from. "Don't believe anything at all, dear Mummy, that +Arthur Delaine may have said to you! I have made a great friend--of a +very interesting man; and I am going to correspond with him. He is +coming to London in November, and I have asked him to stay here. And you +must be _very_ kind to him, darling--just as kind as you can be--for he +has had a hard time--he saved Philip's life--and he is an uncommonly +fine fellow!" + +And with that--great readiness to talk about everything except just +what Mrs. Gaddesden most wanted to know. Elizabeth sitting on her +mother's bed at night, crooning about Canada--her soft brown hair over +her shoulders, and her eyes sparkling with patriotic enthusiasm, was a +charming figure. But let Mrs. Gaddesden attempt to probe and penetrate +beyond a certain point, and the way was resolutely barred. Elizabeth +would kiss her mother tenderly--it was as though her own reticence hurt +her--but would say nothing. Mrs. Gaddesden could only feel sorely that a +great change had come over the being she loved best in the world, and +that she was not to know the whys and wherefores of it. + +And Philip--alack! had been of very little use to her in the matter! + +"Don't you bother your head, Mother! Anderson's an awfully good +chap--but he's not going to marry Elizabeth. Told me he knew he wasn't +the kind. And of course he isn't--must draw the line somewhere--hang it! +But he's an awfully decent fellow. He's not going to push himself in +where he isn't wanted. You let Elizabeth alone, Mummy--it'll work off. +And of course we must be civil to him when he comes over--I should jolly +well think we must--considering he saved my life!" + +Certainly they must be civil! News of Anderson's sailing and arrival +had been anxiously looked for. He had reached London three days before +this date, had presented his credentials at the Board of Trade and the +Colonial Office, and after various preliminary interviews with +ministers, was now coming down to Martindale for a week-end before the +assembling of the small conference of English and colonial +representatives to which he had been sent. + +Mrs. Gaddesden saw from the various notices of his arrival in the +English papers that even in England, among the initiated he was +understood to be a man of mark. She was all impatience to see him, and +had shown it outwardly much more plainly than Elizabeth. How quiet +Elizabeth had been these last days! moving about the house so silently, +with vaguely smiling eyes, like one husbanding her strength before +an ordeal. + +What was going to happen? Mrs. Gaddesden was conscious in her own mind +of a strained hush of expectation. But she had never ventured to say a +word to Elizabeth. In half an hour--or less--he would be here. A motor +had been sent to meet the express train at the country town fifteen +miles off. Mrs. Gaddesden looked round her in the warm dusk, as though +trying to forecast how Martindale and its inmates would look to the +new-comer. She saw a room of medium size, which from the end of the +sixteenth century had been known as the Red Drawing Room--a room +panelled in stamped Cordovan leather, and filled with rare and beautiful +things; with ebony cabinets, and fine lacquer; with the rarest of +oriental carpets, with carved chairs, and luxurious sofas. Set here and +there, sparingly, among the shadows, as though in scorn of any vulgar +profusion, the eye caught the gleam of old silver, or rock crystal, or +agate; _bibelots_ collected a hundred and fifty years ago by a Gaddesden +of taste, and still in their original places. Overhead, the uneven +stucco ceiling showed a pattern of Tudor roses; opposite to Mrs. +Gaddesden the wall was divided between a round mirror, in whose depths +she saw herself reflected and a fine Holbein portrait of a man, in a +flat velvet hat on a green background. Over the carved mantelpiece with +its date of 1586, there reigned a Romney portrait--one of the most +famous in existence--of a young girl in black. Elizabeth Merton bore a +curious resemblance to it. Chrysanthemums, white, yellow and purple, +gleamed amid the richness of the room; while the light of the solitary +lamp beside which Mrs. Gaddesden had been sitting with her embroidery, +blended with the orange glow from outside now streaming in through the +unshuttered windows, to deepen a colour effect of extraordinary beauty, +produced partly by time, partly by the conscious effort of a dozen +generations. + +And from the window, under the winter sunset, Mrs. Gaddesden could see, +at right angles to her on either side, the northern and southern wings +of the great house; the sloping lawns; the river winding through the +park; the ivy-grown church among the trees; the distant woods and +plantations; the purple outlines of the fells. Just as in the room +within, so the scene without was fused into a perfect harmony and +keeping by the mellowing light. There was in it not a jarring note, a +ragged line--age and dignity, wealth and undisputed place: Martindale +expressed them all. The Gaddesdens had twice refused a peerage; and with +contempt. In their belief, to be Mr. Gaddesden of Martindale was enough; +a dukedom could not have bettered it. And the whole country-side in +which they had been rooted for centuries agreed with them. There had +even been a certain disapproval of the financial successes of Philip +Gaddesden's father. It was true that the Gaddesden rents had gone down. +But the country, however commercialised itself, looked with jealousy on +any intrusion of "commercialism" into the guarded and venerable +precincts of Martindale. + +The little lady who was now, till Philip's majority and marriage, +mistress of Martindale, was a small, soft, tremulous person, without the +intelligence of her daughter, but by no means without character. +Secretly she had often felt oppressed by her surroundings. Whenever +Philip married, she would find it no hardship at all to retire to the +dower house at the edge of the park. Meanwhile she did her best to +uphold the ancient ways. But if _she_ sometimes found Martindale +oppressive--too old, too large, too rich, too perfect--how was it going +to strike a young Canadian, fresh from the prairies, who had never been +in England before? + +A sudden sound of many footsteps in the hall. The drawing-room door was +thrown open by Philip, and a troop of men entered. A fresh-coloured man +with grizzled hair led the van. + +"Well, Mrs. Gaddesden, here we all are. Philip has given us a capital +day!" + +A group of men followed him; the agent of the property, two small +neighbouring squires, a broad-browed burly man in knickerbockers, who +was apparently a clergyman, to judge from his white tie, the adjutant of +the local regiment, and a couple of good-looking youths, Etonian friends +of Philip. Elizabeth and Mariette came in from the garden, and a young +cousin of the Gaddesdens, a Miss Lucas, slipped into the room under +Elizabeth's wing. She was a pretty girl, dressed in an elaborate +demi-toilette of white chiffon, and the younger men of the party in +their shooting dress--with Philip at their head--were presently +clustered thick about her, like bees after pollen. It was clear, indeed, +that Philip was paying her considerable attention, and as he laughed and +sparred with her, the transient colour that exercise had given him +disappeared, and a pale look of excitement took its place. + +Mariette glanced from one to another with a scarcely disguised +curiosity. This was only his third visit to England and he felt himself +in a foreign country. That was a _pasteur_ he supposed, in the +gaiters--grotesque! And why was the young lady in evening dress, while +Lady Merton, now that she had thrown off her furs, appeared in the +severest of tweed coats and skirts? The rosy old fellow beside Mrs. +Gaddesden was, he understood from Lady Merton, the Lord Lieutenant of +the county. + +But at that moment his hostess laid hands upon him to present him to her +neighbour. "Monsieur Mariette--Lord Waynflete." + +"Delighted to see you," said the great man affably, holding out his +hand. "What a fine place Canada is getting! I am thinking of sending my +third son there." + +Mariette bowed. + +"There will be room for him." + +"I am afraid he hasn't brains enough to do much here--but perhaps in a +new country--" + +"He will not require them? Yes, it is a common opinion," said Mariette, +with composure. Lord Waynflete stared a little, and returned to his +hostess. Mariette betook himself to Elizabeth for tea, and she +introduced him to the girl in white, who looked at him with enthusiasm, +and at once threw over her bevy of young men, in favour of the +spectacled and lean-faced stranger. + +"You are a Catholic, Monsieur?" she asked him, fervently. "How I envy +you! I _adore_ the Oratory! When we are in town I always go there to +Benediction--unless Mamma wants me at home to pour out tea. Do you know +Cardinal C----?" + +She named a Cardinal Archbishop, then presiding over the diocese of +Westminster. + +"Yes, mademoiselle, I know him quite well. I have just been staying with +him." + +She clasped her hands eagerly. + +"How _very_ interesting! I know him a little. _Isn't_ he nice?" + +"No," said Mariette resolutely. "He is magnificent--a saint--a +scholar--everything--but not nice!" + +The girl looked a little puzzled, then angry, and after a few minutes' +more conversation she returned to her young men, conspicuously turning +her back on Mariette. + +He threw a deprecating, half-penitent look at Elizabeth, whose faced +twitched with amusement, and sat down in a corner behind her that he +might observe without talking. His quick intelligence sorted the people +about him almost at once--the two yeoman-squires, who were not quite at +home in Mrs. Gaddesden's drawing-room, were awkward with their tea-cups, +and talked to each other in subdued voices, till Elizabeth found them +out, summoned them to her side, and made them happy; the agent who was +helping Lady Merton with tea, making himself generally useful; Philip +and another gilded youth, the son, he understood, of a neighbouring +peer, who were flirting with the girl in white; and yet a third +fastidious Etonian, who was clearly bored by the ladies, and was amusing +himself with the adjutant and a cigarette in a distant corner. His eyes +came back at last to the _pasteur_. An able face after all; cool, +shrewd, and not unspiritual. Very soon, he, the parson--whose name was +Everett--and Elizabeth were drawn into conversation, and Marietta under +Everett's good-humoured glance found himself observed as well +as observer. + +"You are trying to decipher us?" said Everett, at last, with a smile. +"Well, we are not easy." + +"Could you be a great nation if you were?" + +"Perhaps not. England just now is a palimpsest--the new writing +everywhere on top of the old. Yet it is the same parchment, and the old +is there. Now _you_ are writing on a fresh skin." + +"But with the old ideas!" said Mariette, a flash in his dark eyes. +"Church--State--family!--there is nothing else to write with." + +The two men drew closer together, and plunged into conversation. +Elizabeth was left solitary a moment, behind the tea-things. The buzz of +the room, the hearty laugh of the Lord Lieutenant, reached the outer +ear. But every deeper sense was strained to catch a voice--a step--that +must soon be here. And presently across the room, her eyes met her +mother's, and their two expectancies touched. + +"Mother!--here is Mr. Anderson!" + +Philip entered joyously, escorting his guest. + +To Anderson's half-dazzled sight, the room, which was now fully lit by +lamplight and fire, seemed crowded. He found himself greeted by a gentle +grey-haired lady of fifty-five, with a strong likeness to a face he +knew; and then his hand touched Elizabeth's. Various commonplaces passed +between him and her, as to his journey, the new motor which had brought +him to the house, the frosty evening. Mariette gave him a nod and smile, +and he was introduced to various men who bowed without any change of +expression, and to a girl, who smiled carelessly, and turned immediately +towards Philip, hanging over the back of her chair. + +Elizabeth pointed to a seat beside her, and gave him tea. They talked of +London a little, and his first impressions. All the time he was trying +to grasp the identity of the woman speaking with the woman he had parted +from in Canada. Something surely had gone? This restrained and rather +cold person was not the Elizabeth of the Rockies. He watched her when +she turned from him to her other guests; her light impersonal manner +towards the younger men, with its occasional touch of satire; the +friendly relation between her and the parson; the kindly deference she +showed the old Lord Lieutenant. Evidently she was mistress here, much +more than her mother. Everything seemed to be referred to her, to circle +round her. + +Presently there was a stir in the room. Lord Waynflete asked for his +carriage. + +"Don't forget, my dear lady, that you open the new Town Hall next +Wednesday," he said, as he made his way to Elizabeth. + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"But you make the speech!" + +"Not at all. They only want to hear you. And there'll be a great crowd." + +"Elizabeth can't speak worth a cent!" said Philip, with brotherly +candour. "Can you, Lisa?" + +"I don't believe it," said Lord Waynflete, "but it don't matter. All +they want is that a Gaddesden should say something. Ah, Mrs. +Gaddesden--how glorious the Romney looks to-night!" He turned to the +fireplace, admiring the illuminated picture, his hands on his sides. + +"Is it an ancestress?" Mariette addressed the question to Elizabeth. + +"Yes. She had three husbands, and is supposed to have murdered the +fourth," said Elizabeth drily. + +"All the same she's an extremely handsome woman," put in Lord Waynflete. +"And as you're the image of her, Lady Merton, you'd better not run her +down." Elizabeth joined in the laugh against herself and the speaker +turned to Anderson. + +"You'll find this place a perfect treasure-house, Mr. Anderson, and I +advise you to study it--for the Radicals won't leave any of us anything, +before many years are out. You're from Manitoba? Ah, you're not +troubled with any of these Socialist fellows yet! But you'll get +'em--you'll get 'em--like rats in the corn. They'll pull the old flag +down if they can. But you'll help us to keep it flying. The Colonies are +our hope--we look to the Colonies!" + +The handsome old man raised an oratorical hand, and looked round on his +audience, like one to whom public speaking was second nature. + +Anderson made a gesture of assent; he was not really expected to say +anything. Mariette in the background observed the speaker with an amused +and critical detachment. + +"Your carriage will be round directly, Lord Waynflete," said Philip, +"but I don't see why you should go." + +"My dear fellow--I have to catch the night train. There is a most +important debate in the House of Lords to-morrow." He turned to the +Canadian politely. "Of course you know there is an autumn session on. +With these Radical Governments we shall soon have one every year." + +"What! the Education Bill again to-morrow?" said Everett. "What are you +going to do with it?" + +Lord Waynflete looked at the speaker with some distaste. He did not much +approve of sporting parsons, and Everett's opinions were too Liberal to +please him. But he let himself be drawn, and soon the whole room was in +eager debate on some of the old hot issues between Church and Dissent. +Lord Waynflete ceased to be merely fatuous and kindly. His talk became +shrewd, statesmanlike even; he was the typical English aristocrat and +Anglican Churchman, discussing topics with which he had been familiar +from his cradle, and in a manner and tone which every man in the +room--save the two Canadians--accepted without question. He was the +natural leader of these men of the land-owning or military class; they +liked to hear him harangue; and harangue he did, till the striking of a +clock suddenly checked him. + +"I must be off! Well, Mrs. Gaddesden, it's the _Church_--the Church we +have to think of!--the Church we have to fight for! What would England +be without the Church--let's ask ourselves that. Good-bye--good-bye!" + +"Is he talking of the Anglican establishment?" muttered Mariette. "_Quel +drôle de vieillard!_" + +The parson heard him, and, with a twinkle in his eyes, turned and +proposed to show the French Canadian the famous library of the house. + +The party melted away. Even Elizabeth had been summoned for some last +word with Lord Waynflete on the subject of the opening of the Town Hall. +Anderson was left alone. + +He looked around him, at the room, the pictures, the panelled walls, +and then moving to the window which was still unshuttered, he gazed out +into the starlit dusk, and the dim, stately landscape. There were lights +in the church showing the stained glass of the perpendicular windows, +and a flight of rooks was circling round the old tower. + +As he stood there, somebody came back into the room. It was the +adjutant, looking for his hat. + +"Jolly old place, isn't it?" said the young man civilly, seeing that the +stranger was studying the view. "It's to be hoped that Philip will keep +it up properly." + +"He seems fond of it," said Anderson. + +"Oh, yes! But you've got to be a big man to fill the position. However, +there's money enough. They're all rich--and they marry money." + +Anderson murmured something inaudible, and the young man departed. + +A little later Anderson and Elizabeth were seated together in the Red +Drawing Room. Mrs. Gaddesden, after a little perfunctory conversation +with the new-comer, had disappeared on the plea of letters to write. The +girl in white, the centre of a large party in the hall, was flirting to +her heart's content. Philip would have dearly liked to stay and flirt +with her himself; but his mother, terrified by his pallor and fatigue +after the exertion of the shoot, had hurried him off to take a warm bath +and rest before dinner. So that Anderson and Elizabeth were alone. + +Conversation between them did not move easily. Elizabeth was conscious +of an oppression against which it seemed vain to fight. Up to the moment +of his sailing from Canada his letters had been frank and full, the +letters of a deeply attached friend, though with no trace in them of the +language of love. What change was it that the touch of English +ground--the sight of Martindale--had wrought? He talked with some +readiness of the early stages of his mission--of the kindness shown to +him by English public men, and the impressions of a first night in the +House of Commons. But his manner was constrained; anything that he said +might have been heard by all the world; and as their talk progressed, +Elizabeth felt a miserable paralysis descending on her own will. She +grew whiter and whiter. This old house in which they sat, with its +splendours and treasures, this environment of the past all about them +seemed to engulf and entomb them both. She had looked forward with a +girlish pleasure--and yet with a certain tremor--to showing Anderson her +old home, the things she loved and had inherited. And now it was as +though she were vulgarly conscious of wealth and ancestry as dividing +her from him. The wildness within her which found its scope and its +voice in Canada was here like an imprisoned stream, chafing in caverns +underground. Ah! it had been easy to defy the Old World in Canada, its +myriad voices and claims--the many-fingered magic with which an old +society plays on those born into it! + +"I shall be here perhaps a month," said Anderson, "but then I shall be +wanted at Ottawa." + +And he began to describe a new matter in which he had been lately +engaged--a large development scheme applying to some of the great Peace +River region north of Edmonton. And as he told her of his August journey +through this noble country, with its superb rivers, its shining lakes +and forests, and its scattered settlers, waiting for a Government which +was their servant and not their tyrant, to come and help their first +steps in ordered civilisation; to bring steamers to their waters, +railways to link their settlements, and fresh settlers to let loose the +fertile forces of their earth--she suddenly saw in him his old self--the +Anderson who had sat beside her in the crossing of the prairies, who had +looked into her eyes the day of Roger's Pass. He had grown older and +thinner; his hair was even lightly touched with grey. But the traces in +him of endurance and of pain were like the weathering of a fine +building; mellowing had come, and strength had not been lost. + +Yet still no word of feeling, of intimacy even. Her soul cried out +within her, but there was no answer. Then, when it was time to dress, +and she led him through the hall, to the inlaid staircase with its +famous balustrading--early English ironwork of extraordinary +delicacy--and through the endless corridors upstairs, old and dim, but +crowded with portraits and fine furniture, Anderson looked round him in +amazement. + +"What a wonderful place!" + +"It is too old!" cried Elizabeth, petulantly; then with a touch of +repentance--"Yet of course we love it. We are not so stifled here as you +would be." + +He smiled and did not reply. + +"Confess you have been stifled--ever since you came to England." + +He drew a long breath, throwing back his head with a gesture which made +Elizabeth smile. He smiled in return. + +"It was you who warned me how small it would all seem. Such little +fields--such little rivers--such tiny journeys! And these immense towns +treading on each other's heels. Don't you feel crowded up?" + +"You are home-sick already?" + +He laughed--"No, no!" But the gleam in his eyes admitted it. And +Elizabeth's heart sank--down and down. + + * * * * * + +A few more guests arrived for Sunday--a couple of politicians, a +journalist, a poet, one or two agreeable women, a young Lord S., who had +just succeeded to one of the oldest of English marquisates, and so on. + +Elizabeth had chosen the party to give Anderson pleasure, and as a guest +he did not disappoint her pride in him. He talked well and modestly, and +the feeling towards Canada and the Canadians in English society had been +of late years so friendly that although there was often colossal +ignorance, there was no coolness in the atmosphere about him. Lord S. +confused Lake Superior with Lake Ontario, and was of opinion that the +Mackenzie River flowed into the Ottawa. But he was kind enough to say +that he would far sooner go to Canada than any of "those beastly places +abroad"--and as he was just a simple handsome youth, Anderson took to +him, as he had taken to Philip at Lake Louise, and by the afternoon of +Sunday was talking sport and big game in a manner to hold the +smoking-room enthralled. + +Only unfortunately Philip was not there to hear. He had been over-tired +by the shoot, and had caught a chill beside. The doctor was in the +house, and Mrs. Gaddesden had very little mind to give to her Sunday +party. Elizabeth felt a thrill of something like comfort as she noticed +how in the course of the day Anderson unconsciously slipped back into +the old Canadian position; sitting with Philip, amusing him and +"chaffing" him; inducing him to obey his doctor; cheering his mother, +and in general producing in Martindale itself the same impression of +masculine help and support which he had produced on Elizabeth, five +months before, in a Canadian hotel. + +By Sunday evening Mrs. Gaddesden, instead of a watchful enemy, had +become his firm friend; and in her timid, confused way she asked him to +come for a walk with her in the November dusk. Then, to his +astonishment, she poured out her heart to him about her son, whose +health, together with his recklessness, his determination to live like +other and sound men, was making the two women who loved him more and +more anxious. Anderson was very sorry for the little lady, and genuinely +alarmed himself with regard to Philip, whose physical condition seemed +to him to have changed considerably for the worse since the Canadian +journey. His kindness, his real concern, melted Mrs. Gaddesden's heart. + +"I hope we shall find you in town when we come up!" she said, eagerly, +as they turned back to the house, forgetting, in her maternal egotism, +everything but her boy. "Our man here wants a consultation. We shall go +up next week for a short time before Christmas." + +Anderson hesitated a moment. + +"Yes," he said, slowly, but in a changed voice, "Yes, I shall still be +there." + +Whereupon, with perturbation, Mrs. Gaddesden at last remembered there +were other lions in the path. They had not said a single word--however +conventional--of Elizabeth. But she quickly consoled herself by the +reflection that he must have seen by now, poor fellow, how hopeless it +was; and that being so, what was there to be said against admitting him +to their circle, as a real friend of all the family--Philip's friend, +Elizabeth's, and her own? + +That night Mrs. Gaddesden was awakened by her maid between twelve and +one. Mr. Gaddesden wanted a certain medicine that he thought was in his +mother's room. Mrs. Gaddesden threw on her dressing-gown and looked for +it anxiously in vain. Perhaps Elizabeth might remember where it was last +seen. She hurried to her. Elizabeth had a sitting-room and bedroom at +the end of the corridor, and Mrs. Gaddesden went into the sitting-room +first, as quietly as possible, so as not to startle her daughter. + +She had hardly entered and closed the door behind her, guided by the +light of a still flickering fire, when a sound from the inner room +arrested her. + +Elizabeth--Elizabeth in distress? + +The mother stood rooted to the spot, in a sudden anguish. +Elizabeth--sobbing? Only once in her life had Mrs. Gaddesden heard that +sound before--the night that the news of Francis Merton's death reached +Martindale, and Elizabeth had wept, as her mother believed, more for +what her young husband might have been to her, than for what he had +been. Elizabeth's eyes filled readily with tears answering to pity or +high feeling; but this fierce stifled emotion--this abandonment of pain! + +Mrs. Gaddesden stood trembling and motionless, the tears on her own +cheeks. Conjecture hurried through her mind. She seemed to be learning +her daughter, her gay and tender Elizabeth, afresh. At last she turned +and crept out of the room, noiselessly shutting the door. After +lingering a while in the passage, she knocked, with an uncertain hand, +and waited till Elizabeth came--Elizabeth, hardly visible in the +firelight, her brown hair falling like a veil round her face. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A few days later the Gaddesdens were in town, settled in a house in +Portman Square. Philip was increasingly ill, and moreover shrouded in a +bitterness of spirit which wrung his mother's heart. She suspected a new +cause for it in the fancy that he had lately taken for Alice Lucas, the +girl in the white chiffon, who had piped to Mariette in vain. Not that +he ever now wanted to see her. He had passed into a phase indeed of +refusing all society--except that of George Anderson. A floor of the +Portman Square house was given up to him. Various treatments were being +tried, and as soon as he was strong enough his mother was to take him to +the South. Meanwhile his only pleasure seemed to lie in Anderson's +visits, which however could not be frequent, for the business of the +Conference was heavy, and after the daily sittings were over, the +interviews and correspondence connected with them took much time. + +On these occasions, whether early in the morning before the business of +the day began, or in the hour before dinner--sometimes even late at +night--Anderson after his chat with the invalid would descend from +Philip's room to the drawing-room below, only allowing himself a few +minutes, and glancing always with a quickening of the pulse through the +shadows of the large room, to see whether it held two persons or one. +Mrs. Gaddesden was invariably there; a small, faded woman in trailing +lace dresses, who would sit waiting for him, her embroidery on her knee, +and when he appeared would hurry across the floor to meet him, dropping +silks, scissors, handkerchief on the way. This dropping of all her +incidental possessions--a performance repeated night after night, and +followed always by her soft fluttering apologies--soon came to be +symbolic, in Anderson's eyes. She moved on the impulse of the moment, +without thinking what she might scatter by the way. Yet the impulse was +always a loving impulse--and the regrets were sincere. + +As to the relation to Anderson, Philip was here the pivot of the +situation exactly as he had been in Canada. Just as his physical +weakness, and the demands he founded upon it had bound the Canadian to +their chariot wheels in the Rockies, so now--_mutatis mutandis_--in +London. Mrs. Gaddesden before a week was over had become pitifully +dependent upon him, simply because Philip was pleased to desire his +society, and showed a flicker of cheerfulness whenever he appeared. She +was torn indeed between her memory of Elizabeth's sobbing, and her +hunger to give Philip the moon out of the sky, should he happen to want +it. Sons must come first, daughters second; such has been the philosophy +of mothers from the beginning. She feared--desperately feared--that +Elizabeth had given her heart away. And as she agreed with Philip that +it would not be a seemly or tolerable marriage for Elizabeth, she would, +in the natural course of things, both for Elizabeth's sake and the +family's, have tried to keep the unseemly suitor at a distance. But here +he was, planted somehow in the very midst of their life, and she, making +feeble efforts day after day to induce him to root himself there still +more firmly. Sometimes indeed she would try to press alternatives on +Philip. But Philip would not have them. What with the physical and moral +force that seemed to radiate from Anderson, and bring stimulus with them +to the weaker life--and what with the lad's sick alienation for the +moment from his ordinary friends and occupations, Anderson reigned +supreme, often clearly to his own trouble and embarrassment. Had it not +been for Philip, Portman Square would have seen him but seldom. That +Elizabeth knew with a sharp certainty, dim though it might be to her +mother. But as it was, the boy's tragic clinging to his new friend +governed all else, simply because at the bottom of each heart, +unrecognised and unexpressed, lurked the same foreboding, the same +fear of fears. + +The tragic clinging was also, alack, a tragic selfishness. Philip had a +substantial share of that quick perception which in Elizabeth became +something exquisite and impersonal, the source of all high emotions. +When Delaine had first suggested to him "an attachment" between Anderson +and his sister, a hundred impressions of his own had emerged to verify +the statement and aggravate his wrath; and when Anderson had said "a man +of my history is not going to ask your sister to marry him," Philip +perfectly understood that but for the history the attempt would have +been made. Anderson was therefore--most unreasonably and +presumptuously--in love with Elizabeth; and as to Elizabeth, the +indications here also were not lost upon Philip. It was all very +amazing, and he wished, to use his phrase to his mother, that it would +"work off." But whether or no, he could not do without Anderson--if +Anderson was to be had. He threw him and Elizabeth together, recklessly; +trusting to Anderson's word, and unable to resist his own craving for +comfort and distraction. + +The days passed on, days so charged with feeling for Elizabeth that they +could only be met at all by a kind of resolute stillness and +self-control. Philip was very dependent on the gossip his mother and +sister brought him from the world outside. Elizabeth therefore, to +please him, went into society as usual, and forgot her heartaches, for +her brother and for herself, as best she could. Outwardly she was much +occupied in doing all that could be done--socially and even +politically--for Anderson and Mariette. She had power and she used it. +The two friends found themselves the object of one of those sudden +cordialities that open all doors, even the most difficult, and run like +a warm wave through London society. Mariette remained throughout the +ironic spectator--friendly on his own terms, but entirely rejecting, +often, the terms offered him tacitly or openly, by his English +acquaintance. + +"Your ways are not mine--your ideals are not mine, God forbid they +should be!"--he seemed to be constantly saying. "But we happen to be +oxen bound under the same yoke, and dragging the same plough. No gush, +please--but at the same time no ill-will! Loyal?--to your loyalties? Oh +yes--quite sufficiently--so long as you don't ask us to let it interfere +with our loyalty to our own! Don't be such fools as to expect us to take +much interest in your Imperial orgies. But we're all right! Only let us +alone--we're all right!" + +Such seemed to be the voice of this queer, kindly, satiric personality. +London generally falls into the arms of those who flout her; and +Mariette, with his militant Catholicism, and his contempt for our +governing ideals, became the fashion. As for Anderson, the contact with +English Ministers and men of affairs had but carried on the generous +process of development that Nature had designed for a strong man. +Whereas in Mariette the vigorous, self-confident English world--based on +the Protestant idea--produced a bitter and profound irritation, Anderson +seemed to find in that world something ripening and favouring that +brought out all the powers--the intellectual powers at least--of his +nature. He did his work admirably; left the impression of a "coming man" +on a great many leading persons interested in the relations between +England and Canada; and when as often happened Elizabeth and he found +themselves at the same dinner-table, she would watch the changes in him +that a larger experience was bringing about, with a heart half proud, +half miserable. As for his story, which was very commonly known, in +general society, it only added to his attractions. Mothers who were +under no anxieties lest he might want to marry their daughters, murmured +the facts of his unlucky _provenance_ to each other, and then the more +eagerly asked him to dinner. + +Meanwhile, for Elizabeth life was one long debate, which left her often +at night exhausted and spiritless. The shock of their first meeting at +Martindale, when all her pent-up yearning and vague expectation had been +met and crushed by the silent force of the man's unaltered will, had +passed away. She understood him better. The woman who is beloved +penetrates to the fact through all the disguises that a lover may +attempt. Elizabeth knew well that Anderson had tones and expressions for +her that no other woman could win from him; and looking back to their +conversation at the Glacier House, she realised, night after night, in +the silence of wakeful hours, the fulness of his confession, together +with the strength of his recoil from any pretension to marry her. + +Yes, he loved her, and his mere anxiety--now, and as things stood--to +avoid any extension or even repetition of their short-lived intimacy, +only betrayed the fact the more eloquently. Moreover, he had reason, +good reason, to think, as she often passionately reminded herself, that +he had touched her heart, and that had the course been clear, he might +have won her. + +But--the course was not clear. From many signs, she understood how +deeply the humiliation of the scene at Sicamous had entered into a proud +man's blood. Others might forget; he remembered. Moreover, that sense of +responsibility--partial responsibility at least--for his father's guilt +and degradation, of which he had spoken to her at Glacier, had, she +perceived, gone deep with him. It had strengthened a stern and +melancholy view of life, inclining him to turn away from personal joy, +to an exclusive concern with public duties and responsibilities. + +And this whole temper had no doubt been increased by his perception of +the Gaddesdens' place in English society. He dared not--he would +not--ask a woman so reared in the best that England had to give, now +that he understood what that best might be, to renounce it all in favour +of what he had to offer. He realised that there was a generous weakness +in her own heart on which he might have played. But he would not play; +his fixed intention was to disappear as soon as possible from her life; +and it was his honest hope that she would marry in her own world and +forget him. In fact he was the prey of a kind of moral terror that here +also, as in the case of his father, he might make some ghastly mistake, +pursuing his own will under the guise of love, as he had once pursued it +under the guise of retribution--to Elizabeth's hurt and his own remorse. + +All this Elizabeth understood, more or less plainly. Then came the +question--granted the situation, how was she to deal with it? Just as he +surmised that he could win her if he would, she too believed that were +she merely to set herself to prove her own love and evoke his, she could +probably break down his resistance. A woman knows her own power. +Feverishly, Elizabeth was sometimes on the point of putting it out, of +so provoking and appealing to the passion she divined, as to bring him, +whether he would or no, to her feet. + +But she hesitated. She too felt the responsibility of his life, as of +hers. Could she really do this thing--not only begin it, but carry it +through without repentance, and without recoil? + +She made herself look steadily at this English spectacle with its +luxurious complexity, its concentration within a small space of all the +delicacies of sense and soul, its command of a rich European tradition, +in which art and literature are living streams springing from +fathomless depths of life. Could she, whose every fibre responded so +perfectly to the stimulus of this environment, who up till now--but for +moments of revolt--had been so happy and at ease in it, could she wrench +herself from it--put it behind her--and adapt herself to quite another, +without, so to speak, losing herself, and half her value, whatever that +might be, as a human being? + +As we know, she had already asked herself the question in some fashion, +under the shadow of the Rockies. But to handle it in London was a more +pressing and poignant affair. It was partly the characteristic question +of the modern woman, jealous, as women have never been before in the +world's history, on behalf of her own individuality. But Elizabeth put +it still more in the interests of her pure and passionate feeling for +Anderson. He must not--he should not--run any risks in loving her! + +On a certain night early in December, Elizabeth had been dining at one +of the great houses of London. Anderson too had been there. The dinner +party, held in a famous room panelled with full-length Vandycks, had +been of the kind that only London can show; since only in England is +society at once homogeneous enough and open enough to provide it. In +this house, also, the best traditions of an older regime still +prevailed, and its gatherings recalled--not without some conscious +effort on the part of the hostess--the days of Holland House, and Lady +Palmerston. To its smaller dinner parties, which were the object of so +many social ambitions, nobody was admitted who could not bring a +personal contribution. Dukes had no more claim than other people, but as +most of the twenty-eight were blood-relations of the house, and some +Dukes are agreeable, they took their turn. Cabinet Ministers, Viceroys, +Ambassadors, mingled with the men of letters and affairs. There was +indeed a certain old-fashioned measure in it all. To be merely +notorious--even though you were amusing--was not passport enough. The +hostess--a beautiful tall woman, with the brow of a child, a quick +intellect, and an amazing experience of life--created round her an +atmosphere that was really the expression of her own personality; +fastidious, and yet eager; cold, and yet steeped in intellectual +curiosities and passions. Under the mingled stimulus and restraint of +it, men and women brought out the best that was in them. The talk was +good, and nothing--neither the last violinist, nor the latest +_danseuse_--was allowed to interfere with it. And while the dress and +jewels of the women were generally what a luxurious capital expects and +provides, you might often find some little girl in a dyed frock--with +courage, charm and breeding--the centre of the scene. + +Elizabeth in white, and wearing some fine jewels which had been her +mother's, had found herself placed on the left of her host, with an +ex-Viceroy of India on her other hand. Anderson, who was on the opposite +side of the table, watched her animation, and the homage that was +eagerly paid her by the men around her. Those indeed who had known her +of old were of opinion that whereas she had always been an agreeable +companion, Lady Merton had now for some mysterious reason blossomed into +a beauty. Some kindling change had passed over the small features. +Delicacy and reserve were still there, but interfused now with a +shimmering and transforming brightness, as though some flame within +leapt intermittently to sight. + +Elizabeth more than held her own with the ex-Viceroy, who was a person +of brilliant parts, accustomed to be flattered by women. She did not +flatter him, and he was reduced in the end to making those efforts for +himself, which he generally expected other people to make for him. +Elizabeth's success with him drew the attention of several other persons +at the table besides Anderson. The ex-Viceroy was a bachelor, and one +of the great _partis_ of the day. What could be more fitting than that +Elizabeth Merton should carry him off, to the discomfiture of +innumerable intriguers? + +After dinner, Elizabeth waited for Anderson in the magnificent gallery +upstairs where the guests of the evening party were beginning to gather, +and the musicians were arriving. When he came she played her usual fairy +godmother's part; introducing him to this person and that, creating an +interest in him and in his work, wherever it might be useful to him. It +was understood that she had met him in Canada, and that he had been +useful to the poor delicate brother. No other idea entered in. That she +could have any interest in him for herself would have seemed incredible +to this world looking on. + +"I must slip away," said Anderson, presently, in her ear; "I promised to +look in on Philip if possible. And to-morrow I fear I shall be +too busy." + +And he went on to tell her his own news of the day--that the Conference +would be over sooner than he supposed, and that he must get back to +Ottawa without delay to report to the Canadian Ministry. That afternoon +he had written to take his passage for the following week. + +It seemed to her that he faltered in telling her; and, as for her, the +crowd of uniformed or jewelled figures around them became to her, as he +spoke, a mere meaningless confusion. She was only conscious of him, and +of the emotion which at last he could not hide. + +She quietly said that she would soon follow him to Portman Square, and +he went away. A few minutes afterwards, Elizabeth said good-night to her +hostess, and emerged upon the gallery running round the fine Italianate +hall which occupied the centre of the house. Hundreds of people were +hanging over the balustrading of the gallery, watching the guests coming +and going on the marble staircase which occupied the centre of the hall. + +Elizabeth's slight figure slowly descended. + +"Pretty creature!" said one old General, looking down upon her. "You +remember--she was a Gaddesden of Martindale. She has been a widow a long +time now. Why doesn't someone carry her off?" + +Meanwhile Elizabeth, as she went down, dreamily, from step to step, her +eyes bent apparrently upon the crowd which filled all the spaces of the +great pictorial house, was conscious of one of those transforming +impressions which represent the sudden uprush and consummation in the +mind of some obscure and long-continued process. + +One moment, she saw the restless scene below her, the diamonds, the +uniforms, the blaze of electric light, the tapestries on the walls, the +handsome faces of men and women; the next, it had been wiped out; the +prairies unrolled before her; she beheld a green, boundless land invaded +by a mirage of sunny water; scattered through it, the white farms; above +it, a vast dome of sky, with summer clouds in glistening ranks climbing +the steep of blue; and at the horizon's edge, a line of snow-peaks. Her +soul leapt within her. It was as though she felt the freshness of the +prairie wind upon her cheek, while the call of that distant +land--Anderson's country--its simpler life, its undetermined fates, beat +through her heart. + +And as she answered to it, there was no sense of renunciation. She was +denying no old affection, deserting no ancient loyalty. Old and new; she +seemed to be the child of both--gathering them both to her breast. + +Yet, practically, what was going to happen to her, she did not know. She +did not say to herself, "It is all clear, and I am going to marry George +Anderson!" But what she knew at last was that there was no dull +hindrance in herself, no cowardice in her own will; she was ready, when +life and Anderson should call her. + +At the foot of the stairs Mariette's gaunt and spectacled face broke in +upon her trance. He had just arrived as she was departing. + +"You are off--so early?" he asked her, reproachfully. + +"I want to see Philip before he settles for the night." + +"Anderson, too, meant to look in upon your brother." + +"Yes?" said Elizabeth vaguely, conscious of her own reddening, and of +Mariette's glance. + +"You have heard his news?" He drew her a little apart into the shelter +of a stand of flowers. "We both go next week. You--Lady Merton--have +been our good angel--our providence. Has he been saying that to you? All +the same--_ma collégue_--I am disappointed in you!" + +Elizabeth's eye wavered under his. + +"We agreed, did we not--at Glacier--on what was to be done next to our +friend? Oh! don't dispute! I laid it down--and you accepted it. As for +me, I have done nothing but pursue that object ever since--in my own +way. And you, Madam?" + +As he stood over her, a lean Don Quixotish figure, his long arms akimbo, +Elizabeth's fluttering laugh broke out. + +"Inquisitor! Good night!" + +"Good night--but--just a word! Anderson has done well here. Your public +men say agreeable things of him. He will play your English game--your +English Imperialist game--which I can't play. But only, if he is +happy--if the fire in him is fed. Consider! Is it not a patriotic duty +to feed it?" + +And grasping her hand, he looked at her with a gentle mockery that +passed immediately into that sudden seriousness--that unconscious air of +command--of which the man of interior life holds the secret. In his +jests even, he is still, by natural gift, the confessor, the director, +since he sees everything as the mystic sees it, _sub specie +æternitatis_. + +Elizabeth's soft colour came and went. But she made no reply--except it +were through an imperceptible pressure of the hand holding her own. + +At that moment the ex-Viceroy, resplendent in his ribbon of the Garter, +who was passing through the hall, perceived her, pounced upon her, and +insisted on seeing her to her carriage. Mariette, as he mounted the +staircase, watched the two figures disappear--smiling to himself. + +But on the way home the cloud of sisterly grief descended on +Elizabeth. How could she think of herself--when Philip was +ill--suffering--threatened? And how would he bear the news of +Anderson's hastened departure? + +As soon as she reached home, she was told by the sleepy butler that Mrs. +Gaddesden was in the drawing-room, and that Mr. Anderson was still +upstairs with Philip. + +As she entered the drawing-room, her mother came running towards her +with a stifled cry: + +"Oh, Lisa, Lisa!" + +In terror, Elizabeth caught her mother in her arms. + +"Mother--is he worse?" + +"No! At least Barnett declares to me there is no real change. But he has +made up his mind, to-day, that he will never get better. He told me so +this evening, just after you had gone; and Barnett could not satisfy +him. He has sent for Mr. Robson." Robson was the family lawyer. + +The two women looked at one another in a pale despair. They had reached +the moment when, in dealing with a sick man, the fictions of love drop +away, and the inexorable appears. + +"And now he'll break his heart over Mr. Anderson's going!" murmured the +mother, in an anguish. "I didn't want him to see Philip to-night--but +Philip heard his ring--and sent down for him." + +They sat looking at each other, hand in hand--waiting--and listening. +Mrs. Gaddesden murmured a broken report of the few words of conversation +which rose now, like a blank wall, between all the past, and this +present; and Elizabeth listened, the diamonds in her hair and the folds +of her satin dress glistening among the shadows of the half-lit room, +the slow tears on her cheeks. + +At last a step descended. Anderson entered the room. + +"He wants you," he said, to Elizabeth, as the two women rose. "I am +afraid you must go to him." + +The electric light immediately above him showed his frowning, shaken +look. + +"He is so distressed by your going?" asked Elizabeth, trembling. + +Anderson did not answer, except to repeat insistently-- + +"You must go to him. I don't myself think he is any worse--but--" + +Elizabeth hurried away. Anderson sat down beside Mrs. Gaddesden, and +began to talk to her. + +When his sister entered his room, Philip was sitting up in an arm-chair +near the fire; looking so hectic, so death-doomed, so young, that his +sister ran to him in an agony--"Darling Philip--my precious Philip--why +did you want me? Why aren't you asleep?" + +She bent over him and kissed his forehead, and then taking his hand she +laid it against her cheek, caressing it tenderly. + +"I'm not asleep--because I've had to think of a great many things," said +the boy in a firm tone. "Sit down, please, Elizabeth. For a few days +past, I've been pretty certain about myself--and to-night I screwed it +out of Barnett. I haven't said anything to you and mother, but--well, +the long and short of it is, Lisa, I'm not going to recover--that's all +nonsense--my heart's too dicky--I'm going to die." + +She protested with tears, but he impatiently asked her to be calm. "I've +got to say something--something important--and don't you make it harder, +Elizabeth! I'm not going to get well, I tell you--and though I'm not of +age--legally--yet I do represent father--I am the head of the +family--and I have a right to think for you and mother. Haven't I?" + +The contrast between the authoritative voice, the echo of things in him, +ancestral and instinctive, and the poor lad's tremulous fragility, was +moving indeed. But he would not let her caress him. + +"Well, these last weeks, I've been thinking a great deal, I can tell +you, and I wasn't going to say anything to you and mother till I'd got +it straight. But now, all of a sudden, Anderson comes and says that +he's going back. Look here, Elizabeth--I've just been speaking to +Anderson. You know that he's in love with you--of course you do!" + +With a great effort, Elizabeth controlled herself. She lifted her face +to her brother's as she sat on a low chair beside him. "Yes, dear +Philip, I know." + +"And did you know too that he had promised me not to ask you to marry +him?" + +Elizabeth started. + +"No--not exactly. But perhaps--I guessed." + +"He did then!" said Philip, wearily. "Of course I told him what I +thought of his wanting to marry you, in the Rockies; and he behaved +awfully decently. He'd never have said a word, I think, without my +leave. Well--now I've changed my mind!" + +Elizabeth could not help smiling through her tears. With what merry +scorn would she have met this assertion of the _patria potestas_ from +the mouth of a sound brother! Her poor Philip! + +"Dear old boy!--what have you been saying to Mr. Anderson?" + +"Well!"--the boy choked a little--"I've been telling him that--well, +never mind!--he knows what I think about him. Perhaps if I'd known him +years ago--I'd have been different. That don't matter. But I want to +settle things up for you and him. Because you know, Elizabeth, you're +pretty gone on him, too!" + +Elizabeth hid her face against his knee--without speaking. The boy +resumed: + +"And so I've been telling him that now I thought differently--I hoped he +would ask you to marry him--and I knew that you cared for him--but +that he mustn't dream of taking you to Canada. That was all +nonsense--couldn't be thought of! He must settle here. You've lots of +money--and--well, when I'm gone--you'll have more. Of course Martindale +will go away from us, and I know he will look after mother as well +as you." + +There was silence--till Elizabeth murmured--"And what did he say?" + +The lad drew himself away from her with an angry movement. + +"He refused!" + +Elizabeth lifted herself, a gleam of something splendid and passionate +lighting up her small face. + +"And what else, dear Philip, did you expect?" + +"I expected him to look at it reasonably!" cried the boy. "How can he +ask a woman like you to go and live with him on the prairies? It's +ridiculous! He can go into English politics, if he wants politics. Why +shouldn't he live on your money? Everybody does it!" + +"Did you really understand what you were asking him to do, Philip?" + +"Of course I did! Why, what's Canada compared to England? Jolly good +thing for him. Why he might be anything here! And as if I wouldn't +rather be a dustman in England than a--" + +"Philip, my dear boy! do rest--do go to bed," cried his mother +imploringly, coming into the room with her soft hurrying step. "It's +going on for one o'clock. Elizabeth mustn't keep you talking like this!" + +She smiled at him with uplifted finger, trying to hide from him all +traces of emotion. + +But her son looked at her steadily. + +"Mother, is Anderson gone?" + +"No," said Mrs. Gaddesden, with hesitation. "But he doesn't want you to +talk any more to-night--he begs you not. Please--Philip!" + +"Ask him to come here!" said Philip, peremptorily. "I want to talk to +him and Elizabeth." + +Mrs. Gaddesden protested in vain. The mother and daughter looked at each +other with flushed faces, holding a kind of mute dialogue. Then +Elizabeth rose from her seat by the fire. + +"I will call Mr. Anderson, Philip. But if we convince you that what you +ask is quite impossible, will you promise to go quietly to bed and try +to sleep? It breaks mother's heart, you know, to see you straining +yourself like this." + +Philip nodded--a crimson spot in each cheek, his frail hands twining and +untwining as he tried to compose himself. + +Elizabeth went half-way down the stairs and called. Anderson hurried out +of the drawing-room, and saw her bending to him from the shadows, very +white and calm. + +"Will you come back to Philip a moment?" she said, gently. "Philip has +told me what he proposed to you." + +Anderson could not find a word to say. In a blind tumult of feeling he +caught her hand, and pressed his lips to it, as though appealing to her +dumbly to understand him. + +She smiled at him. + +"It will be all right," she whispered. "My poor Philip!" and she led him +back to the sick room. + +"George--I wanted you to come back, to talk this thing out," said +Philip, turning to him as he entered, with the tyranny of weakness. +"There's no time to waste. You know--everybody knows--I may get +worse--and there'll be nothing settled. It's my duty to settle--" + +Elizabeth interrupted him. + +"Philip darling!--" + +She was hanging over his chair, while Anderson stood a few feet away, +leaning against the mantelpiece, his face turned from the brother and +sister. The intimacy--solemnity almost--of the sick-room, the midnight +hour, seemed to strike through Elizabeth's being, deepening and yet +liberating emotion. + +"Dear Philip! It is not for Mr. Anderson to answer you--it is for me. If +he could give up his country--for happiness--even for love--I should +never marry him--for--I should not love him any more." + +Anderson turned to look at her. She had moved, and was now standing in +front of Philip, her head thrown back a little, her hands lightly +clasped in front of her. Her youth, her dress, her diamonds, combined +strangely with the touch of high passion in her shining eyes, her +resolute voice. + +"You see, dear Philip, I love George Anderson--" + +Anderson gave a low cry--and, moving to her side, he grasped her hand. +She gave it to him, smiling--and went on: + +"I love him--partly--because he is so true to his own people--because I +saw him first--and knew him first--among them. No! dear Philip, he has +his work to do in Canada--in that great, great nation that is to be. He +has been trained for it--no one else can do it but he--and neither you +nor I must tempt him from it." + +The eyes of the brother and sister met. Elizabeth tried for a lighter +tone. + +"But as neither of us _could_ tempt him from it--it is no use +talking--is it?" + +Philip looked from her to Anderson in a frowning silence. No one spoke +for a little while. Then it seemed to them as though the young man +recognised that his effort had failed, and his physical weakness shrank +from renewing it. But he still resisted his mother's attempt to put an +end to the scene. + +"That's all very well, Lisa," he said at last, "but what are you going +to do?" + +Elizabeth withdrew her hand from Anderson's. + +"What am I going to do? _Wait_--just that!" + +But her lip trembled. And to hide it she sank down again in the low +chair in front of her brother, propping her face in both hands. + +"Wait?" repeated Philip, scornfully--"and what for?" + +"Till you and mother--come to my way of thinking--and"--she +faltered--"till Mr. Anderson--" + +Her voice failed her a moment. Anderson stood motionless, bending +towards her, hanging upon her every gesture and tone. + +"Till Mr. Anderson--" she resumed, "is--well!--is brave enough +to--trust a woman! and--oh! good Heavens!"--she dashed the tears from +her eyes, half laughing, as her self-control broke down--"clever enough +to save her from proposing to him in this abominable way!" + +She sprang to her feet impatiently. Anderson would have caught her in +his arms; but with a flashing look, she put him aside. A wail broke from +Mrs. Gaddesden: + +"Lisa--you won't leave us!" + +"Never, darling--unless you send me!--or come with me! And now, don't +you think, Philip dearest, you might let us all go to bed? You are +really not worse, you know; and Mother and I are going to carry you off +south--very, very soon." + +She bent to him and kissed his brow. Philip's face gradually changed +beneath her look, from the tension and gloom with which he had begun the +scene to a kind of boyish relief--a touch of pleasure--of mischief even. +His high, majestical pretensions vanished away; a light and volatile +mind thought no more of them; and he turned eagerly to another idea. + +"Elizabeth, do you know that you have proposed to Anderson?" + +"If I have, it was your fault." + +"He hasn't said Yes?" + +Elizabeth was silent. Anderson came forward--but Philip stopped him +with a gesture. + +"He can't say Yes--till I give him back his promise," said the boy, +triumphantly. "Well, George, I do give it you back--on one +condition--that you put off going for a week, and that you come back as +soon as you can. By Jove, I think you owe me that!" + +Anderson's difficult smile answered him. + +"And now you've got rid of your beastly Conference, you can come in, and +talk business with me to-morrow--next day--every day!" Philip resumed, +"can't he, Elizabeth? If you're going to be my brother, I'll jolly well +get you to tackle the lawyers instead of me--boring old idiots! I +say--I'm going to take it easy now!" + +He settled himself in his chair with a long breath, and his eyelids +fell. He was speaking, as they all knew, of the making of his will. Mrs. +Gaddesden stooped piteously and kissed him. Elizabeth's face quivered. +She put her arm round her mother and led her away. Anderson went to +summon Philip's servant. + +A little later Anderson again descended the dark staircase, leaving +Philip in high spirits and apparently much better. + +In the doorway of the drawing-room, stood a white form. Then the man's +passion, so long dyked and barriered, had its way. He sprang towards +her. She retreated, catching her breath; and in the shadows of the empty +room she sank into his arms. In the crucible of that embrace all things +melted and changed. His hesitations and doubts, all that hampered his +free will and purpose, whether it were the sorrows and humiliations of +the past--or the compunctions and demurs of the present--dropped away +from him, as unworthy not of himself, but of Elizabeth. She had made him +master of herself, and her fate; and he boldly and loyally took up the +part. He had refused to become the mere appanage of her life, because he +was already pledged to that great idea he called his country. She loved +him the more for it; and now he had only to abound in the same sense, in +order to hold and keep the nature which had answered so finely to his +own. He had so borne himself as to wipe out all the social and external +inequalities between them. What she had given him, she had had to sue +him to take. But now that he had taken it, she knew herself a weak woman +on his breast, and she realised with a happy tremor that he would make +her no more apologies for his love, or for his story. Rather, he stood +upon that dignity she herself had given him--her lover, and the captain +of her life! + + + +EPILOGUE + +About nine months later than the events told in the last chapter, the +August sun, as it descended upon a lake in that middle region of the +northern Rockies which is known as yet only to the Indian trapper, +and--on certain tracks--to a handful of white explorers, shone on a boat +containing two persons--Anderson and Elizabeth. It was but twenty-four +hours since they had reached the lake, in the course of a long camping +expedition involving the company of two guides, a couple of half-breed +_voyageurs_, and a string of sixteen horses. No white foot had ever +before trodden the slender beaches of the lake; its beauty of forest and +water, of peak and crag, of sun and shadow, the terror of its storms, +the loveliness of its summer--only some stray Indian hunter, once or +twice in a century perhaps, throughout all the æons of human history, +had ever beheld them. + +But now, here were Anderson and Elizabeth!--first invaders of an +inviolate nature, pioneers of a long future line of travellers and +worshippers. + +They had spent the day of summer sunshine in canoeing on the broad +waters, exploring the green bays, and venturing a long way up a +beautiful winding arm which seemed to lose itself in the bosom of superb +forest-skirted mountains, whence glaciers descended, and cataracts leapt +sheer into the glistening water. Now they were floating slowly towards +the little promontory where their two guides had raised a couple of +white tents, and the smoke of a fire was rising into the evening air. + +Sunset was on the jagged and snow-clad heights that shut in the lake to +the eastward. The rose of the sky had been caught by the water and +interwoven with its own lustrous browns and cool blues; while +fathom-deep beneath the shining web of colour gleamed the reflected +snows and the forest slopes sliding downwards to infinity. A few +bird-notes were in the air--the scream of an eagle, the note of a +whip-poor-will, and far away across the lake a dense flight of wild duck +rose above a reedy river-mouth, black against a pale band of sky. + +They were close now to the shore, and to a spot where lightning and +storm had ravaged the pines and left a few open spaces for the sun to +work. Elizabeth, in delight, pointed to the beds of wild strawberries +crimsoning the slopes, intermingled with stretches of bilberry, and +streaks of blue and purple asters. But a wilder life was there. Far +away the antlers of a swimming moose could be seen above the quiet lake. +Anderson, sweeping the side with his field glass, pointed to the ripped +tree-trunks, which showed where the brown bear or the grizzly had been, +and to the tracks of lynx or fox on the firm yellow sand. And as they +rounded the point of a little cove they came upon a group of deer that +had come down to drink. + +The gentle creatures were not alarmed at their approach; they raised +their heads in the red light, seeing man perhaps for the first time, but +they did not fly. Anderson stayed the boat--and he and Elizabeth watched +them with enchantment--their slender bodies and proud necks, the bright +sand at their feet, the brown water in front, the forest behind. + +Elizabeth drew a long breath of joy--looking back again at the dying +glory of the lake, and the great thunder-clouds piled above the forest. + +"Where are we exactly?" she said. "Give me our bearings." + +"We are about seventy miles north of the main line of the C.P.R., and +about forty or fifty miles from the projected line of the Grand Trunk +Pacific," said Anderson. "Make haste, dearest, and name your lake!--for +where we come, others will follow." + +So Elizabeth named it--Lake George--after her husband; seeing that it +was his topographical divination, his tracking of the lake through the +ingenious unravelling of a score of Indian clues which had led them at +last to that Pisgah height whence the silver splendour of it had first +been seen. But the name was so hotly repudiated by Anderson on the +ground of there being already a famous and an historical Lake George on +the American continent, that the probability is, when that noble sheet +of water comes to be generally visited of mankind, it will be known +rather as Lake Elizabeth; and so those early ambitions of Elizabeth +which she had expressed to Philip in the first days of her Canadian +journeying, will be fulfilled. + +[Illustration: "LAKE ELIZABETH"] + +Alas!--poor Philip! Elizabeth's black serge dress, and the black ribbon +on her white sun-hat were the outward tokens of a grief, cherished deep +in her protesting, pitiful heart. Her brother had lived for some four +months after her engagement to Anderson; always, in spite of encouraging +doctors, under the same sharp premonition of death which had dictated +his sudden change of attitude towards his Canadian friend. In the +January of the new year, Anderson had joined them at Bordighera, and +there, after many alternating hopes and fears, a sudden attack of +pneumonia had slit the thin-spun life. A few weeks later, at Mrs. +Gaddesden's urgent desire, and while she was in the care of a younger +sister to whom she was tenderly attached, there had been a quiet wedding +at Genoa, and a very pale and sad Elizabeth had been carried by her +Anderson to some of the beloved Italian towns, where for so long she had +reaped a yearly harvest of delight. In Rome, Florence, and Venice she +must needs rouse herself, if only to show the keen novice eyes, beside +her what to look at, and to grapple with the unexpected remarks which +the spectacle evoked from Anderson. He looked in respectful silence at +Bellini and Tintoret; but the industrial growth of the north, the +strikes of _braccianti_ on the central plains, and the poverty of Sicily +and the south--in these problems he was soon deeply plunged, teaching +himself Italian in order to understand them. + +Then they had returned to Mrs. Gaddesden, and to the surrender of +Martindale to its new master. For the estate went to a cousin, and when +the beauty and the burden of it were finally gone, Philip's gentle +ineffectual mother departed with relief to the moss-grown dower-house +beside Bassenthwaite lake, there to sorrow for her only son, and to find +in the expansion of Elizabeth's life, in Elizabeth's letters, and the +prospects of Elizabeth's visits, the chief means left of courage and +resignation. Philip's love for Anderson, his actual death in those +strong arms, had strengthened immeasurably the latter's claim upon her; +and in March she parted with him and Elizabeth, promising them boldly +that she would come to them in the fall, and spend a Canadian winter +with them. + +Then Anderson and Elizabeth journeyed West in hot haste to face a +general election. Anderson was returned, and during three or four months +at Ottawa, Elizabeth was introduced to Canadian politics, and to the +swing and beat of those young interests and developing national hopes +which, even after London, and for the Londoner, lend romance and +significance to the simpler life of Canada's nascent capital. But +through it all both she and Anderson pined for the West, and when +Parliament rose in early July, they fled first to their rising +farm-buildings on one of the tributaries of the Saskatchewan, and then, +till the homestead was ready, and the fall ploughing in sight, they had +gone to the Rockies, in order that they might gratify a passionate wish +of Elizabeth's--to get for once beyond beaten tracks, and surprise the +unknown. She pleaded for it as their real honeymoon. It might never be +possible again; for the toils of life would soon have snared them. + +And so, after a month's wandering beyond all reach of civilisation, +they were here in the wild heart of Manitou's wild land, and the red and +white of Elizabeth's cheek, the fire in her eyes showed how the god's +spell had worked.... + + * * * * * + +The evening came. Their frugal meal, prepared by one of the Indian +half-breeds, and eaten in a merry community among beds of orchids and +vetch, was soon done; and the husband and wife pushed off again in the +boat--for the densely wooded shores of the lake were impassable on +foot--to watch the moon rise on this mysterious land. + +And as they floated there, often hand in hand, talking a little, but +dreaming more--Anderson's secret thoughts reviewed the past year, and +the incredible fortune which had given him Elizabeth. + +Deep in his nature was still the old pessimism, the old sadness. Could +he make her happy? In the close contact of marriage he realised all that +had gone to the making of her subtle and delicate being--the influences +of a culture and tradition of which he was mostly ignorant, though her +love was opening many gates to him. He felt himself in many respects her +inferior--and there were dark moments when it seemed to him inevitable +that she must tire of him. But whenever they overshadowed him, the +natural reaction of a vigorous manhood was not far off. Patriotism and +passion--a profound and simple pride--stood up and wrestled with his +doubt. She was not less, but more, than he had imagined her. What was in +truth his safeguard and hers, was the fact that, at the very root of +her, Elizabeth was a poet! She had seen Canada and Anderson from the +beginning in the light of imagination; and that light was not going to +fail her now. For it sprang from the truth and glow of her own nature; +by the help of it she _made_ her world; and Canada and Anderson moved +under it, nobly seen and nobly felt. + +This he half shrinkingly understood, and he repaid her with adoration, +and a wisely yielding mind. For her sake he was ready to do a hundred +things he had never yet thought of, reading, inquiring, observing, in +wider circles and over an ampler range. For as the New World, through +Anderson, worked on Elizabeth--so Europe, through Elizabeth, worked on +Anderson. And thus, from life to life, goes on the great +interpenetrating, intermingling flux of things! + +It seemed as though the golden light could not die from the lake, though +midsummer was long past. And presently up into its midst floated the +moon, and as they watched the changing of the light upon the northern +snow-peaks, they talked of the vast undiscovered regions beyond, of the +valleys and lakes that no survey has ever mapped, and the rivers that +from the beginning of time have spread their pageant of beauty for the +heavens alone; then, of that sudden stir and uproar of human +life--prospectors, navvies, lumbermen--that is now beginning to be heard +along that narrow strip where the new line of the Grand Trunk Pacific is +soon to pierce the wilderness--yet another link in the girdling of the +world. And further yet, their fancy followed, ever northward--solitude +beyond solitude, desert beyond desert--till, in the Yukon, it lit upon +gold-seeking man, dominating, at last, a terrible and hostile earth, +which had starved and tortured and slain him in his thousands, before he +could tame her to his will. + +And last--by happy reaction--it was the prairies again--their fruitful +infinity--and the emigrant rush from East and South. + +"When we are old"--said Elizabeth softly, slipping her hand into +Anderson's--"will all this courage die out of us? Now--nothing of all +this vastness, this mystery frightens me. I feel a kind of insolent, +superhuman strength!--as if I--even I--could guide a plough, reap corn, +shoot rapids, 'catch a wild goat by the hair--and hurl my lances at +the sun!'" + +"With this hand?" said Anderson, looking at it with a face of +amusement. But Elizabeth took no heed--except to slip the other hand +after it--both into the same shelter. + +She pursued her thought, murmuring the words, the white lids falling +over her eyes: + +"But when one is feeble and dying, will it all grow awful to me? +Suddenly--shall I long to creep into some old, old corner of England or +Italy--and feel round me close walls, and dim small rooms, and dear, +stuffy, familiar streets that thousands and thousands of feet have worn +before mine?" + +Anderson smiled at her. He had guided their boat into a green cove where +there was a little strip of open ground between the water and the +forest. They made fast the boat, and Anderson found a mossy seat under a +tall pine from which the lightning of a recent storm had stripped a +great limb, leaving a crimson gash in the trunk. And there Elizabeth +nestled to him, and he with his arm about her, and the intoxication of +her slender beauty mastering his senses, tried to answer her as a plain +man may. The commonplaces of passion--its foolish promises--its blind +confidence--its trembling joy--there is no other path for love to travel +by, and Elizabeth and Anderson trod it like their fellows. + +Six months later on a clear winter evening Elizabeth was standing in +the sitting-room of a Saskatchewan farmhouse. She looked out upon a +dazzling world of snow, lying thinly under a pale greenish sky in which +the sunset clouds were just beginning to gather. The land before her +sloped to a broad frozen river up which a wagon and a team of horses was +plodding its way--the steam rising in clouds round the bodies of the +horses and men. On a track leading to the river a sledge was +running--the bells jingling in the still, light air. To her left were +the great barns of the homestead, and beyond, the long low cowshed, with +a group of Shorthorns and Herefords standing beside the open door. Her +eyes delighted in the whiteness of the snow, or the touches of orange +and scarlet in the clumps of bush, in a note of crimson here and there, +among the withered reeds pushing through the snow, or in the thin +background of a few taller trees--the "shelter-belt" of the farm--rising +brown and sharp against the blue. + +Within the farmhouse sitting-room flamed a great wood fire, which shed +its glow on the white walls, on the prints and photographs and books +which were still Elizabeth's companions in the heart of the prairies, as +they had been at Martindale. The room was simplicity itself, yet full +of charm, with its blue druggetting, its pale green chairs and +hangings. At its further end, a curtain half drawn aside showed another +room, a dining-room, also firelit--with a long table spread for tea, a +bare floor of polished woodblocks, and a few prints on the walls. + +The wagon she had seen on the river approached the homestead. The man +who was driving it--a strong-limbed, fair-haired fellow--lifted his cap +when he saw Elizabeth at the window. She nodded and smiled at him. He +was Edward Tyson, one of the two engine-drivers who had taken her and +Philip through the Kicking Horse Pass. His friend also could be seen +standing among the cattle gathered in the farmyard. They had become +Anderson's foremen and partners on his farm of twelve hundred acres, of +which only some three hundred acres had been as yet brought under +plough. The rest was still virgin prairie, pasturing a large mixed herd +of cattle and horses. The two North-Countrymen had been managing it all +in Anderson's Parliamentary absences, and were quite as determined as he +to make it a centre of science and progress for a still remote and +sparely peopled district. One of the kinsmen was married, and lived in a +small frame house, a stone's throw from the main buildings of the farm. +The other was the head of the "bothy" or boarding-house for hired men, +a long low building, with cheerful white-curtained windows, which could +be seen just beyond the cow-house. + +As she looked over the broad whiteness of the farmlands, above which the +sunset clouds were now tossing in climbing lines of crimson and gold, +rising steeply to a zenith of splendour, and opening here and there, +amid their tumult, to show a further heaven of untroubled +blue--Elizabeth thought with lamentation that their days on the farm +were almost done. The following week could see them at Ottawa for the +opening of the session. Anderson was full of Parliamentary projects; +important work for the Province had been entrusted to him; and in the +general labour policy of the Dominion he would find himself driven to +take a prominent part. But all the while his heart and Elizabeth's were +in the land and its problems; for them the true, the entrancing Canada +was in the wilds. And for Anderson, who through so many years, as an +explorer and engineer, had met Nature face to face, his will against +hers, in a direct and simple conflict, the tedious and tortuous methods +of modern politics were not easy to learn. He must indeed learn them--he +was learning them; and the future had probably great things in store for +him, as a politician. But he came back to the Saskatchewan farm with +joy, and he would leave it reluctantly. + +"If only I wasn't so rich!" thought Elizabeth, with compunction. For she +often looked with envy on her neighbours who had gone through the real +hardships of the country; who had bought their Canadian citizenship with +the toil and frugality of years. It seemed to her sometimes that she was +step-child rather than daughter of the dear new land, in spite of her +yearning towards it. + +And yet money had brought its own romance. It had enabled Anderson to +embark on this ample farm of nearly two square miles, to staff it with +the best labour to be got, on a basis of copartnership, to bring herds +of magnificent cattle into these park-like prairies, to set up +horse-breeding, and to establish on the borders of the farm a large +creamery which was already proving an attraction for settlers. It was +going to put into Elizabeth's hands the power of helping the young +University of Strathcona just across the Albertan border, and perhaps of +founding in their own provincial capital of Regina a training college +for farm-students--girls and boys--which might reproduce for the West +the college of St. Anne's, that wonderful home of all the useful arts, +which an ever-generous wealth has given to the Province of Quebec. +Already she had in her mind a cottage hospital--sorely wanted--for the +little town of Donaldminster, wherein the weaklings of this great +emigrant army now pouring into the country might find help. + +Her heart, indeed, was full of schemes for help. Here she was, a woman +of high education, and much wealth, in the midst of this nascent +community. Her thoughts pondered the life of these scattered farms--of +the hard-working women in them--the lively rosy-cheeked children. It was +her ambition so to live among them that they might love her--trust +her--use her. + +Meanwhile their own home was a "temple of industrious peace." Elizabeth +was a prairie housewife like her neighbours. She had indeed brought out +with her from Cumberland one of the Martindale gardeners and his young +wife and sister; and the two North-Country women shared with the farm +mistress the work of the house, till such time as Anderson should help +the husband to a quarter-section of his own, and take someone else to +train in his place. But the atmosphere of the house was one of friendly +equality. Elizabeth--who had herself gone into training for a few weeks +at St. Anne's--prided herself on her dairy, her bread, her poultry. One +might have seen her, on this winter afternoon, in her black serge dress +with white cap and apron, slipping into the kitchen behind the +dining-room, testing the scones in the oven, looking to the preparations +for dinner, putting away stores, and chatting to the two clear-eyed +women who loved her, and would not for the world have let her try her +strength too much! For she who was so eagerly planning the help of +others must now be guarded and cherished herself--lest ill befall! + +But now she was at the window watching for Anderson. + +The trail from Donaldminster to Battleford passed in front of the house, +dividing the farm. Presently there came slowly along it a covered wagon +drawn by a pair of sorry horses and piled at the back with household +possessions. In front sat a man of slouching carriage, and in the +interior of the wagon another figure could be dimly seen. The whole +turn-out gave an impression of poverty and misfortune; and Elizabeth +looked at it curiously. + +Suddenly, the wagon drew up with a jerk at the gate of the farm, and the +man descended, with difficulty, his limbs being evidently numb +with cold. + +Elizabeth caught up a fur cloak and ran to the door. + +"Could you give us a bit of shelter for the night?" said the man +sheepishly. "We'd thought of getting on to Battleford, but the little +un's bad--and the missus perished with cold. We'd give you no trouble if +we might warm ourselves a bit." + +And he looked under his eyebrows at Elizabeth, at the bright fire behind +her, and all the comfort of the new farmhouse. Yet under his shuffling +manner there was a certain note of confidence. He was appealing to that +Homeric hospitality which prevails throughout the farms of the +Northwest. + +And in five minutes, the horses were in the barn, the man sitting by the +kitchen fire, while Elizabeth was ministering to the woman and child. +The new-comers made a forlorn trio. They came from a district some fifty +miles further south, and were travelling north in order to take shelter +for a time with relations. The mother was a girl of twenty, worn with +hardship and privation. The father, an English labourer, had taken up +free land, but in spite of much help from a paternal Government, had not +been able to fulfil his statutory obligation, and had now forfeited his +farm. There was a history of typhoid fever, and as Elizabeth soon +suspected, an incipient history of drink. In the first two years of his +Canadian life the man worked for a farmer during the summer, and loafed +in Winnipeg during the winter. There demoralisation had begun, and as +Elizabeth listened, the shadow of the Old World seemed to be creeping +across the radiant Canadian landscape. The same woes?--the same +weaknesses?--the same problems of an unsound urban life? + +Her heart sank for a moment--only to provoke an instant reaction of +cheerfulness. No!--in Canada the human will has still room to work, and +is not yet choked by a jungle growth of interests. + +She waited for Anderson to come in, and meanwhile she warmed and +comforted the mother. The poor girl looked round her in amazement at the +pretty spacious room, as she spread her hands, knotted and coarsened by +work, to the blaze. Elizabeth held her sickly babe, rocking it and +crooning to it, while upstairs one of kind-eyed Cumberland women was +getting a warm bath ready, and lighting a fire in the guest-room. + +"How old is it?" she asked. + +"Thirteen months." + +"You ought to give up nursing it. It would be better for you both." + +"I tried giving it a bit o' what we had ourselves," said the mother, +dully--"But I nearly lost her." + +"I should think so!" laughed Elizabeth indignantly; and she began to +preach rational ways of feeding and caring for the child, while the +mother sat by, despondent, and too crushed and hopeless to take much +notice. Presently Elizabeth gave her back the babe, and went to fetch +hot tea and bread and butter. + +"Shall I come and get it in the kitchen?" said the woman, rising. + +"No, no--stay where you are!" cried Elizabeth. And she was just carrying +back a laden tray from the dining-room when Anderson caught her. + +"Darling!--that's too heavy for you!--what are you about?" + +"There's a woman in there who's got to be fed--and there's a man in +there"--she pointed to the kitchen--"who's got to be talked to. Hopeless +case!--so you'd better go and see about it!" + +She laughed happily in his face, and he snatched a kiss from her as he +carried off the tray. + +The woman by the fire rose again in amazement as she saw the +broad-shouldered handsome man who was bringing in the tea. Anderson had +been tramping through the thin-lying snow all day, inquiring into the +water-supply of a distant portion of the farm. He was ruddy with +exercise, and the physical strength that seemed to radiate from him +intimidated the wanderer. + +"Where are you bound to?" he said kindly, as he put down the tea beside +her. + +The woman, falteringly, told her story. Anderson frowned a little. + +"Well, I'd better go and talk to your husband. Mrs. Anderson will look +after you." + +And Elizabeth held the baby, while the woman fed languidly--too tired +and spiritless indeed to eat. + +When she could be coaxed no further, Elizabeth took her and the babe +upstairs. + +"I never saw anything like this in these parts!" cried the girl, looking +round her at the white-tiled bathroom. + +"Oh, they're getting quite common!" laughed Elizabeth. "See how nice and +warm the water is! Shall we bathe the baby?" And presently the child lay +warm and swaddled in its mother's arms, dressed in some baby-clothes +produced by Elizabeth from a kind of travellers' cupboard at the top of +the stairs. Then the mother was induced to try a bath for herself, while +Elizabeth tried her hand at spoon-feeding the baby; and in half an hour +she had them both in bed, in the bright spare-room--the young mother's +reddish hair unbound lying a splendid mass on the white pillows, and a +strange expression--as of some long tension giving way--on her +pinched face. + +"We'll not know how to thank you"--she said brokenly. "We were just at +the last. Tom wouldn't ask no one to help us before. But we'd only a +few shillings left--we thought at Battleford, we'd sell our bits of +things--perhaps that'd take us through." She looked piteously at +Elizabeth, the tears gathering in her eyes. + +"Oh! well, we'll see about that!" said Elizabeth, as she tucked the +blankets round her. "Nobody need starve in this country! Mr. Anderson'll +be able perhaps to think of something. Now you go to sleep, and we'll +look after your husband." + +Anderson joined his wife in the sitting-room, with a perplexed +countenance. The man was a poor creature--and the beginnings of the +drink-craving were evident. + +"Give him a chance," said Elizabeth. "You want one more man in the +bothy." + +She sat down beside him, while Anderson pondered, his legs stretched to +the fire. A train of thought ran through his mind, embittered by the +memory of his father. + +He was roused from it by the perception that Elizabeth was looking +tired. Instantly he was all tenderness, and anxious misgiving. He made +her lie down on the sofa by the fire, and brought her some important +letters from Ottawa to read, and the English newspapers. + +From the elementary human need with which their minds had just been +busy, their talk passed on to National and Imperial affairs. They +discussed them as equals and comrades, each bringing their own +contribution. + +"In a fortnight we shall be in Ottawa!" sighed Elizabeth, at last. + +Anderson smiled at her plaintive voice. + +"Darling!--is it such a tragedy?" + +"No, I shall be as keen as anybody else when we get there. But--we are +so happy here!" + +"Is that really, really true?" asked Anderson, taking her hand and +pressing it to his lips. + +"Yes"--she murmured--"yes--but it will be truer still next year!" + +They looked at each other tenderly. Anderson stooped and kissed her, +long and closely. + +He was called away to give some directions to his men, and Elizabeth lay +dreaming in the firelight of the past and the future, her hands clasped +on her breast, her eyes filling with soft tears. Upstairs, in the room +above her, the emigrant mother and baby lay sleeping in the warmth and +shelter gathered round them by Elizabeth. But in tending them, she had +been also feeding her own yearning, quickening her own hope. She had +given herself to a man whom she adored, and she carried his child on her +heart. Many and various strands would have gone to the weaving of that +little soul; she trembled sometimes to think of them. But no fear with +her lasted long. It was soon lost in the deep poetic faith that +Anderson's child in her arms would be the heir of two worlds, the pledge +of a sympathy, a union, begun long before her marriage in the depths of +the spirit, when her heart first went out to Canada--to the beauty of +the Canadian land, and the freedom of the Canadian life. + + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lady Merton, Colonist, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LADY MERTON, COLONIST *** + +***** This file should be named 13823-8.txt or 13823-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/8/2/13823/ + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner +and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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