Chapter 14

AGATHA PROVES OBDURATE.

It was two days later when Agatha, coming back from a stroll across the prairie with the two little girls, found Mrs. Hastings awaiting her at the homestead door.

"I'll take the kiddies. Harry Wyllard's here, and he seems quite anxious to see you, though I don't know what he wants," she said.

She flashed a searching glance at the girl, whose face, however, remained expressionless. It was, at least, not often that Agatha's composure broke down.

"Anyway," she added, "you had better go in. Allen has been arguing with him the last half-hour, and can't get any sense into him. It seems to me the man's crazy; but he might, perhaps, listen to you."

"I think that's scarcely likely," said Agatha quietly.

Her companion made a sign of impatience. "Then," she said, "it's a pity. Anyway, if he speaks to you about his project you can tell him that it's altogether unreasonable."

She drew aside, and Agatha walked into the room in which she had had one painful interview with Gregory. Wyllard, who was sitting there, rose as she came in, and half-consciously she contrasted him with her lover. Then what Mrs. Hastings had once predicted came about, for Gregory did not bear that comparison favourably. Indeed, it seemed to her that he grew coarser and meaner in person and character. Then she turned to Wyllard, who stood quietly watching her.

"Nellie Hastings or her husband has been telling you what they think of my idea?" he said.

Agatha admitted it. "Yes," she said. "Their opinion evidently hasn't much weight with you."

"I wouldn't go quite so far as that, but you might have gone a little further than you did. Haven't you a message for me?" Then he smiled before he added, "You were sent to denounce my folly--and you can't do it. If you trusted your own impulses you would give me your benediction instead."

Agatha, who was troubled with a sense of regret, noticed that there was a suggestive wistfulness in his face.

"No," she said slowly, "I can't denounce it. For one reason, I have no right of any kind to force my views on you."

"You told Nellie Hastings that?"

It seemed an unwarranted question, but the girl admitted it candidly.

"In one sense I did. I suggested that there was no reason why you should listen to me."

Wyllard smiled again. "Nellie and her husband are good friends of mine, but sometimes our friends are a little too officious. Anyway, it doesn't count. If you had had that right, you would have told me to go."

Agatha felt the warm blood rise to her cheeks. It seemed to her that he had paid her a great and sincere compliment in taking it for granted that if she had loved him she would still have bidden him undertake his perilous duty.

"Ah," she said, "I don't know. Perhaps I should not have been brave enough."

It was not a judicious answer. She quite realised that, but she felt that she must speak with unhesitating candour.

"After all," she added, "can you be quite sure that this thing is your duty?"

The man laughed in a rather grim fashion. "No," he said, "I can't. In fact, when I sit down to think I can see at least a dozen reasons why it doesn't concern me. In a case of this kind that's always easy. It's just borne in upon me--I don't know how--that I have to go."

Agatha crossed to the window and sat down. She knew there was more to follow, and it seemed advisable to secure whatever there might be in her favour in a pose of physical ease. Besides, where she stood the glare of light flung back by the white and dusty grass outside struck full upon her face, and she did not want the man to read every varying expression. He leaned upon a chair-back looking at her gravely.

"Well," he said, "we'll go on a little further. It seems better that I should make what's in my mind quite clear to you. You see, I and Captain Dampier start in a week."

Agatha was certainly conscious of a thrill of dismay, but the man proceeded quietly. "We may be back before the winter, but it's also quite likely that we may be ice-nipped before our work is through, and in that case it would be a year at least before we reach Vancouver. In fact, there's a certain probability that all of us may leave our bones up there. Now, there's a thing I must ask you. Is it only a passing trouble that stands between you and Gregory? Are you still fond of him?"

The girl felt her heart beating unpleasantly fast. It would have been a relief to assure herself that she was as fond of Gregory as she had been, but she could not do it.

"That," she said, "is a point on which I cannot answer you."

"We'll let it go at that. The fact that Gregory sent me over for you implied a certain obligation. How far events have cleared me of it I don't know--and you don't seem willing to tell me. But I fancy there is now less cause than there was for me to thrust my own wishes into the background, and, as I start in another week, the situation has forced my hand. I can't wait as I had meant to do, and it would be a vast relief to know that I had made your future safer than it is before I go. Will you marry me at the settlement the morning I start?"

Half-conscious, as she was, of the unselfishness which had prompted this suggestion, Agatha turned and faced him in hot anger.

"Can you suppose for a moment that I would agree to that?" she asked.

"Wait," said the man gravely. "Try to look at it quietly. First of all, I want you. You know that--though you have never shown me any tenderness, you can't doubt it--but I can't stay to win your liking. I must go away. Then, as things stand, your future is uncertain; and as my wife it would, at least, be safer. However badly the man I leave in charge of the Range may manage there would be something saved out of the wreck, and I would like to make that something yours. As I said, I may be away a year, perhaps eighteen months, and I may never come back. If I don't, the fact that you would bear my name could cause you no great trouble. It would lay no restraint on you in any way."

Agatha looked him steadily in the eyes, and spoke as she felt. "We can't contemplate your not coming back. It's unthinkable."

"Thank you," said Wyllard, still with the grave quietness she wondered at. "Then I'm not sure that my turning up again would greatly complicate the thing. There would, at least, be one way out of the difficulty. You wouldn't find the situation intolerable if I could make you fond of me."

The girl broke into a little, high-strung laugh that had a tinge of bitterness in it.

"Oh," she said, "aren't you taking too much for granted? Am I really to believe you are making this fantastic offer seriously? Do you suppose I would marry you--for your possessions?"

"It sounds bloodless? Perhaps it is in one way, but you wouldn't always find me that. Just now, because my hand is forced, I am only anticipating things. If I live, you will some day have to choose between me and Gregory. In this case he must hold his own if he can."

"Against what you have offered me?" She flung the question at him.

He looked at her with his face set and the signs of restraint very plain on it.

"I expect I deserved that. I wanted to make you safe. It's the most pressing difficulty."

The bitterness was still in the girl's eyes.

"So far as I am concerned, you seem to believe it is the only one." Then her anger seemed to carry her away. "Oh," she said, "do you imagine that an offer of the kind you have made me, made as you have made it, would lead anyone to love you?"

Wyllard smiled. "When I first saw your picture, and when I saw you afterwards, I loved your gracious quietness. Now you seem to have got rid of it, I love you better as you are. There is, however, one thing I must ask again, and it's your clear duty to tell me. Are you fonder of Gregory than you feel you ever could be of me?"

Agatha's eyes fell. She felt she could not look at him just then, nor could she answer his question honestly as she almost wished to.

"At least, I am bound to him until he releases me."

"Ah," said Wyllard, "that is what I was most afraid of. All along it hampered me, and in it you have the reason for my bloodlessness. It is another reason why I should go away."

"For fear that you should tempt me from my duty?"

The man's expression changed, and there crept into his eyes a gleam of the passion that she knew he was capable of.

"My dear," he said, "I seem to know that I could make you break faith with that man. You belong to me. For three years you have been everywhere with me, but we will let that go. I must go away, and Gregory will have a clear field, but the probability is in favour of me coming back again, and then, if he has failed to make the most of it, I'll enforce my claim."

He turned and seized one of her hands, holding it strongly against her will.

"That is my last word. At least, you will let me think that when I go up yonder into the mists and snow I shall take your good wishes for my success away with me."

She lifted her face, which was flushed, and once more looked him steadily in the eyes.

"They are yours, most fervently," she said. "It would be intolerable that you should fail."

He smiled very gravely, and let her hand fall. "After all," he said, "one can only do what one can."

Then he went out without another glance at her, and not long afterwards Mrs. Hastings, who was endued with a reasonable measure of curiosity, found occasion to enter the room.

"You have said something to trouble Harry?" she began.

Agatha contrived to smile. "I'm not sure he's greatly troubled. In any case, I told him I would not marry him--for the second time."

"He has given up his crazy notion, then?"

"He never suggested doing that."

Mrs. Hastings made a little sign of compassionate astonishment.

"Oh," she said, "he's mad."

"I believe I told him he was bloodless. At least, that was how he interpreted what I said."

Mrs. Hastings laughed. "Harry Wyllard bloodless! My dear, can't you see that the restraint he now and then practises is the sign of a tremendous vitality? Still, the man's mad. Did he tell you that he means to leave Gregory in charge of Willow Range?"

Agatha was certainly astonished at this, but Mrs. Hastings nodded. "It's a fact," she said. "He asked him to meet him here to save time, and"--she turned towards the window--"there's his waggon now."

She moved towards the door, and then turned again. "Is there any blood--red blood we will call it--or even common-sense in you? You could have kept that man here if you had wanted."

"No," said Agatha, "I don't think I could. I'm not even sure that if I'd had the right I would have done it. He recognised that."

Mrs. Hastings looked at her very curiously. "Then," she said, "you have either a somewhat extraordinary character, or are in love with him in a way that is beyond most of us. In any case, I can't help feeling that you will be sorry for what you have done some day."

Next moment the door closed with a bang, and Agatha was left alone endeavouring to analyse her sensations during her interview with Wyllard, which was difficult, for they had been confused and fragmentary. She had certainly been angry with him, but the cause for this was much less apparent, though there were one or two half-sufficient explanations. For one thing, it was almost intolerable to feel that he had evidently taken it for granted that the greater security she would enjoy as his wife would appeal to her, though there was a certain satisfaction in the reflection that to leave her dependent upon Mrs. Hastings caused him concern. For another thing, his reserve had been at least perplexing, and it was borne in upon her that it would have cost her a more determined effort to withstand him had he spoken with fire and passion. The restraint, however, had been evident, and he could not have practised it unless there had been something to hold in check; and then it became apparent that it was more important to ascertain his motives than her own.

If the man had been fervently in love with her, why had he not insisted on that fact, she asked. Could it have been because he had with the fantastic generosity, which he was evidently capable of, been willing to leave his comrade unhandicapped with an open field? That, however, seemed too much to expect from any man. Then there was the other explanation that he preferred to leave the choice wholly to her lest he should tempt her too strongly to break faith with Gregory, which brought the blood to her face as it had done already, since it suggested that he fancied he had only to urge her sufficiently and she would yield. There was, it seemed, no satisfactory explanation at all. Only the fact remained that he had made her a somewhat dispassionate offer of marriage, and had left her to decide, which she had done.

As it happened, Wyllard could not just then, at least, have made the matter very much clearer. Shrewdly practical, as he was, in some respects, there were times when he acted blindly, merely doing without reasoning what he sub-consciously felt was right. This had more than once involved him in disaster, but it is, perhaps, fortunate that there are others like him, for, after all, in the long run the failures of such men now and then prove better than the dictates of calculating wisdom.

In any case, Agatha found a momentary relief from her thoughts as she watched Hawtrey get down from his waggon and approach the house. The change in him was plainer than it had ever been, which may have been because she had now a standard of comparison. He was tall and well-favoured, and he moved with a jaunty and yet not ungraceful swing; but it almost seemed to her that this was merely the result of an empty self-sufficiency. There was, she felt, no force behind it which when the strain came would prove that jaunty bearing warranted. He was smiling, and for some reason his smile appeared a trifle inane, while there was certainly a hint of sensuousness in his face. It suggested that the man might sink into self-indulgent coarseness. She, however, remembered that she was still pledged to him, and determinedly brushed these thoughts aside, until she heard his footsteps inside the house, when she became possessed of a burning curiosity as to what Wyllard had to say to him, which, however, remained unsatisfied.

In the meanwhile, Hawtrey entered a room where Wyllard sat awaiting him with a paper in his hand.

"I asked you to drive over here because it would save time," he said. "I have to go in to the railroad at once. Here's a draft of the scheme I suggested. You had better tell me if there's anything you're not quite satisfied with."

He threw the paper on the table, and Hawtrey, who took it up, perused it.

"I'm to farm and generally manage the Range on your behalf," he said. "My percentage to be deducted after harvest. I'm empowered to sell out grain or horses as appears advisable, and to have the use of teams and implements for my own place when occasion requires it."

He looked up. "I've no fault to find with the thing, Harry. It's generous."

"Then you had better sign it, and we'll get Hastings to witness it in a minute or two. In the meanwhile there's a thing I have to ask you. How do you stand in regard to Miss Ismay?"

Hawtrey pushed his chair back noisily. "That," he said, "is a subject on which I'm naturally not disposed to give you any information. How does it concern you?

"In this way. Believing that your engagement must be broken off I asked Miss Ismay to marry me."

Hawtrey was clearly startled, but in a moment or two he smiled.

"Of course," he said, "she wouldn't. As a matter of fact, our engagement isn't broken off. It's merely extended."

They looked at each other in silence for a moment or two, and there was a curious hardness in Wyllard's eyes. Then Hawtrey spoke again.

"In view of what you have just told me why did you want to put me of all people in charge of the Range?" he said.

"I'll be candid," said Wyllard. "For one thing, you held on when I was slipping off the trestle that day in British Columbia. For another, you'll make nothing of your own holding, and if you run the Range as it ought to be run it will put a good many dollars into your pocket, besides relieving me of a big anxiety. If you're to marry Miss Ismay, I'd sooner she was made reasonably comfortable."

Hawtrey looked up with a flush in his face.

"Harry," he said, "this is extravagantly generous."

"Wait," said Wyllard; "there's a little more to be said. I can't be back before the frost, and I may be away eighteen months. While I am away you will have a clear field--and you must make the most of it. If you are not married when I come back I shall ask Miss Ismay again. Now"--and he glanced at his comrade steadily--"does this stand in the way of your going on with the arrangement we have arrived at?"

There was a rather tense silence for a moment or two, and then Hawtrey broke it.

"No," he said; "after all, there is no reason why it should do so. It has no practical bearing upon the other question."

Wyllard rose. "Well," he said, "if you will call Allen Hastings in we'll get this thing fixed up."

The document was duly signed, and a few minutes later Wyllard drove away; but Mrs. Hastings contrived to have a few words with Hawtrey before he did the same.

"I've no doubt that Harry took you into his confidence on a certain point," she said.

"Yes," admitted Hawtrey; "he did. I was a little astonished, besides feeling rather sorry for him. There is, however, reason to believe that he'll soon get over it."

"You feel sure of that?" and Mrs. Hastings smiled.

"Isn't it evident? If he had cared much about her he certainly wouldn't have gone away."

"You mean you wouldn't?"

"No," said Hawtrey, "there's no doubt of that."

His companion smiled again. "Well," she said drily, "I would like to think you were right about Harry; it would be a relief to me."

Hawtrey, who said nothing further, presently drove away, and soon after he did so Agatha approached Mrs. Hastings.

"There's something I must ask you," she said. "Has Gregory consented to take charge of Wyllard's farm?"

"He has," said her companion in her dryest tone.

Agatha's face flushed, and there was a flash in her eyes.

"Oh," she said, "it's almost insufferable!"

Then she turned and left Mrs. Hastings without another word.

She only saw Wyllard once again, and that was when he called at the homestead early one morning. He got down from the waggon where Dampier sat, and shook hands with her and Allen and Mrs. Hastings. Very few words were spoken, and she could not remember what she said, but when he swung himself up again and the waggon jolted away into the white prairie she went back to the house with her heart beating unpleasantly fast and a very curious feeling of depression.