CHAPTER XVIII

NEVIS'S VISITOR

Florence Hunter had lately returned from Toronto and was sitting on the veranda toward the middle of the afternoon in an unusually thoughtful mood. Among other reasons for this, there was the fact that she had spent a good deal of money while she was away, and she was far from sure that she had received its full value. Most of the people she had met in Toronto appeared to be endued with irritatingly respectable, old-fashioned views, and as a result of it they could not be induced to forget that she was a married woman separated for a few weeks from a self-sacrificing husband. Indeed, one or two of them went so far as to condole with her for his absence, and their general attitude imposed on her an unwelcome restraint. There was certainly one exception, but this man had no tact, and the lady who stood sponsor for her openly frowned at his too marked devotion, while some of the others laughed. Florence at length got rid of him summarily, and then half regretted it when nobody else aspired to fill his place.

It had, further, occurred to her in Elcot's absence that he had a number of strong points, after all. He was quiet and steadfast, not to be moved from his purpose by anger or cajolery, and though this was sometimes troublesome, there was no doubt that he was a man who could be relied upon. She had nothing to fear, except, perhaps, her own imprudence, while she was in his care. Then, although she would hardly have expected it before she went away, she found the spacious wooden house pleasantly cool and quiet after the stir and rush of life in the hot city, and Elcot's unobtrusive regard for her comfort soothing. He never fussed, but when she wanted anything done he was almost invariably at hand. She determined to be more gracious to him in the future, for she was troubled with a slightly uncomfortable feeling that he might have had something to complain of in this respect in the past.

On the whole, her thoughts were far from pleasant, and in addition to this the temperature, which was a good deal higher than usual, had a depressing effect on her. There was no breeze that afternoon, and the air was still and heavy; the white prairie flung back a trying light, even on to the shaded veranda, and she felt restless, captious and irritable. At length, however, she took up a book and endeavored to become engrossed in it. She so far succeeded that she did not hear a buggy drive up, and it was with a start that she straightened herself in her chair as Nevis walked quietly on to the veranda.

"I never expected you!" she exclaimed.

The man smiled in a deprecatory fashion.

"I heard at the station that you arrived yesterday."

Florence frowned at this. The inference was too obvious; he evidently wished to imply that it would have been unnatural had he delayed his visit.

"Well," she said, "you startled me. Do you generally walk into places that way--like a pickpocket?"

Nevis laughed, and when he sat down rather close to her, uninvited, she favored him with a gaze of careful and undisguised scrutiny. Florence could be openly rude upon occasion, and though his visits hitherto had afforded her some satisfaction, she now felt that she would have been better pleased had he stayed away. He was, as usual, tastefully dressed; there was no doubt that his clothes became him; but somehow it struck her that, although she had not realized this earlier, the man looked cheap, which on consideration seemed the best word for it.

"I suppose you enjoyed yourself while you were away?" he began.

"No," replied Florence; "on the whole, I don't think I did."

She broke off and added irritably:

"Why do you always come at this time? If you drove over in the evening you would find Elcot at home."

She was genuinely provoked by her companion's smile. It so tactlessly implied that she did not mean what she had said. His signal lack of delicacy jarred on her now, though she remembered with faint wonder that she had on previous occasions found a relish in his conversation.

"Well," he answered, "for one reason, I generally call here when I'm going to the bluff. It's convenient to get there for supper."

Florence was annoyed at the opening words. The hint that there was a stronger reason which he had not mentioned was so crude that it savored of mere impertinence. Somehow she felt disappointed in the man. She had, as she realized at length, expected clever compliments from him, firmly finished, subtle boldness that would be just sufficiently apparent to convey a pleasurable thrill, and, with the latter exception, a wholly respectful homage. As to what he had expected she was far from clear, but that was a point of much less account. The polish, however, seemed suddenly to have been rubbed off him, and there was nothing into which she cared to look beneath. Even Elcot would have been capable of something more skilful than his too familiar inanities. What had brought about this change in the way she regarded him she did not know, but there was no doubt that she felt all at once disillusioned. She was in her caprices essentially variable.

"Your supper is evidently a matter of importance to you," she said.

Nevis looked at her sharply.

"Not more than it is to most other men. In return, I wonder if I might point out that you don't seem quite as amiable as usual to-day?"

Florence laughed.

"As a matter of fact, I'm not. Nobody could feel very pleasant at this temperature; and I'm disappointed--with several things." She leaned back languidly in her chair with an air of weariness. "When that happens it's a relief to be disagreeable to anybody who comes along. Besides, you're not in the least entertaining this afternoon."

There was something in her manner that stung the man, and he ventured upon an impertinence.

"I suppose that means that Elcot hasn't proved amenable, as usual; but it's a little rough on me that I should have to meet the bill after a long and scorching drive."

Florence laughed again, scornfully.

"Elcot," she retorted, "is accustomed to carrying his own load, and on occasion other people's too, which is a weakness with which I'd never credit you. Besides, if he'd traveled for a week to see me he wouldn't think of reminding me of it."

"You seem inclined to drag his virtues out and parade them to-day."

There was no doubt that the man was going too far, and that led Florence to wonder whether he could be driven into going any farther.

"That," she replied, "would be quite unnecessary in Elcot's case. In fact, his virtues have an almost exasperating habit of meeting you in the face, which is no doubt why it's rather pleasant to get away from them--occasionally."

"You prefer something different on the off-days?"

"Yes," Florence answered reflectively, "I like a change; but it must be admitted that I invariably feel an increased respect for Elcot after it."

Nevis winced at this. She had made it clear that it was his part to amuse her at irregular intervals and enhance her husband's finer qualities by the contrast. It was not, however, one that appealed to him, and he had a vindictive temper. As it happened, she presently gave him an opportunity for indulging it.

"I wish I'd never gone to Toronto," she said petulantly.

"Considering everything, that's quite a pity," Nevis pointed out. "The visit probably cost you a good deal of money; and"--he added this with a grim suggestiveness--"wheat is steadily going down."

Florence gazed at him with a hardening face. He evidently meant it as a reminder that she owed him money. The man was becoming intolerable.

"Is it?" she asked indifferently. "In any case, I shall no doubt manage to meet my debts when they fall due."

Nevis had reasons for believing that it would be more difficult than she seemed to anticipate, but he talked about something else, and then, finding that his companion did not favor him with very much attention, he took his leave. When he was getting into his buggy Hunter came up and stopped him.

"I'm rather busy, but I can spare you a few minutes if it's necessary," he said.

Nevis looked at him with a provocative smile.

"It isn't," he answered. "It was your wife I came to see; she entrusted me with the arranging of a little matter."

He gathered up the reins, and added, as though to explain his departure:

"There are several things I want to get through with at the bluff this evening."

"Then I won't try to keep you."

Hunter walked up on the veranda and, leaning on the balustrade, looked at his wife.

"You have had a deal of some kind with that man?"

A flush of anger swept into Florence's cheek.

"He told you that?" she exclaimed; and then added, with a harsh laugh, "As it happens, he was quite correct."

Hunter stood still with an expressionless face for a moment or two, apparently waiting in case she had anything else to say; and then, with a gesture which might have meant anything, he moved away along the veranda. Florence's conscience accused her when he disappeared into the house; but she was most clearly sensible that she was now a little afraid of Nevis and disposed to hate him. However, she lay quietly in her basket-chair until word was brought her that supper was ready.

Two or three days later Nevis sat late one night in his office at the railroad settlement. It was situated at the back of his implement store, on the ground floor of a very ugly wooden building which had a false front that rose a little beyond the ridge of roof. One door opened directly on to the prairie; the other led into the store, from which there exuded a pungent smell of paint and varnish. A nickeled lamp hung over Nevis's head, and the little room was unpleasantly hot, so hot, indeed, that he sat in his shirt-sleeves before a table littered with papers. Not far away a small safe stood open. This contained further papers tied up in several bundles and neatly endorsed. There was nothing else in the room except a few shelves filled with account books; and there was no covering on the floor. Nevis, like most commercial men in the small western towns, wasted very little money on superfluous accessories. He found that he could employ it much more profitably.

He had, as it happened, a troublesome matter to decide on, and seeing no way out of the difficulties which complicated it, he rose at length, and, lighting a cigar, opened the outer door and stood leaning against it. It was cooler there, and he noticed that the night was unusually dark. The stream of light that flowed out past him, forcing up his figure in a sharp, black silhouette, only intensified the thick obscurity in which it was almost immediately lost. It was also very still, and he could hear his white shirt crackle at each slight movement of the hand that held the cigar. Everybody in the little wooden town was, he surmised, already asleep, though he knew that a west-bound train would stop there in half an hour or so.

He did not know how long he remained in the doorway, but by degrees the stillness became oppressive, and at last he started as a sound rose suddenly out of the darkness. It was a faint, metallic rattle, and he leaned forward a little, listening in strained attention. The noise was so unexpected that it jarred on him.

Then he recollected that some of his neighbors were addicted to dumping empty provision cans and similar refuse into a clump of willows which straggled close up to the back of the town not far away, and he decided that one of them had fallen down or rolled over. After that he went back to his table, leaving the door open for the sake of coolness, and he was once more occupied with his papers when he heard a sharp knocking at the front of the store. Pushing his chair back he took out his watch. Somebody who was going west by the train that was almost due apparently desired to see him, though it seemed a curious thing that the man had not called earlier. He rose and entered the store, where he fell against the projecting handle of a plow in the darkness. This ruffled his temper, and he spent some time impatiently fumbling for and undoing the fastenings of the outer door. Then he flung it open somewhat violently, and strode out into the darkness. There was, so far as he could see, nobody in the vicinity, and when, moving forward a few paces he called out, he got no answer.

Feeling slightly uneasy as well as astonished, he stood still for, perhaps, a minute, gazing about him. He could dimly see the houses across the street, with the tall false fronts of one or two cutting black against the sky, but there was not a light in any of them, and there was certainly no sound of footsteps. He was neither a nervous nor a fanciful man, and it scarcely seemed possible that his ears had deceived him. Swinging around suddenly, he went back into the store and fastened the outer door before he reentered his office. The door at the back of the office and the safe stood open just as he had left them. Crossing the room he looked into the safe.

As a rule, a man's possessions are as secure in a small prairie town as they would be in, for example, London or Montreal, but Nevis seldom kept much money in his safe. He usually made his collections after harvest, and remitted the proceeds to a bank in Winnipeg. A small iron cash-box, however, occupied one shelf, and it was at once evident that this had not been touched, which seemed to prove that nobody with dishonest intentions had entered the place in his absence. This was satisfactory, but a few moments later it struck him that one of the bundles of docketed papers was not lying exactly where he had last placed it. He could not be quite sure of this, though he was methodical in his habits, and he took the bundle up and examined it. The tape around it was securely tied and the papers did not seem to have been disturbed. Besides this, they were in no sense marketable securities.

He laid them down again and closed the safe. Then, locking the outer door behind him, he proceeded through the silent town toward the track. As he did so the clanging of a locomotive bell broke through a slackening clatter of wheels, and when after a smart run he reached the station, hot and somewhat breathless, the lights of the long train were just sliding out of it. He strode up to the agent, who stood in the doorway of his office shack with a lantern in his hand.

"Did anybody get on board?" he asked.

"No," replied the agent. "Nobody got off, either. Did you expect to catch up any one?"

"I fancied somebody called at the store a few minutes ago. It occurred to me that the man might want to leave some message and had forgotten it until he was going to catch the train."

"I guess it must have been a delusion," remarked the agent.

Nevis had almost arrived at the same conclusion. He waited a few minutes, and then they walked back together through the settlement. The agent left him outside the store, above which he had a room, and dismissing the matter from his mind he went tranquilly to sleep half an hour later.