"Philip!" she cried.
He spoke no word as he crushed her hand. The hot grip of his fingers, the deep flush in his face, was interpreted by her as a welcome which it did not require speech to strengthen. He shook hands with Brokaw, and as the three followed after the factor his eyes sought vainly for Pierre and Jeanne.
They were gone, and he felt suddenly a thrill of repugnance at the gentle pressure of Eileen Brokaw"s hand upon his arm.
VIII
Philip did not see the hundred staring eyes that followed in wonderment the tall, beautiful girl who walked at his side. He knew that Miss Brokaw was talking and laughing, and that he was nodding his head and answering her, while his brain raged for an idea that would give him an excuse for leaving her to follow Jeanne and Pierre. The facts that Gregson had left him so strangely, that Eileen had come with her father, and that, instead of clearing up the mystery in which they were so deeply involved, the arrival of the London ship had even more hopelessly entangled them, were forgotten for the moment in the desire to intercept Jeanne and Pierre before they could leave Churchill. Miss Brokaw herself unconsciously gave him the opportunity for which he was seeking.
"You don"t look very happy, Philip," she exclaimed, in a chiding voice, meant only for his ears. "I thought--perhaps--my coming would make you glad."
Philip caught eagerly at the half question in her voice.
"I feared you would notice it," he said, quickly. "I was afraid you would think me indifferent because I did not go out to meet you in the boat, and because I stood hidden at the end of the pier when you landed. But I was looking for a man. I have been hunting for him for a long time. And I saw his face just as we came through the crowd. That is why I am--am rattled," he laughed. "Will you excuse me if I go back?
Can you find some excuse for the others? I will return in a few minutes, and then you will not say that I am unhappy."
Miss Brokaw drew her hand from his arm.
"Surely I will excuse you," she cried. "Hurry, or you may lose him. I would like to go with you if it is going to be exciting."
Philip turned to Brokaw and the factor, who were close behind them.
"I am compelled to leave you here," he explained. "I have excused myself to Miss Brokaw, and will rejoin you almost immediately."
He lost no time in hurrying back to the sh.o.r.e of the Bay. As he had expected, Jeanne and her companion were no longer in sight. There was only one direction in which they could have disappeared so quickly, and this was toward the cliff. Once hidden by the fringe of forest, he hastened his steps until he was almost running. He had reached the base of the huge ma.s.s of rock that rose up from the sea, when down the narrow trail that led to the cliff there came a figure to meet him. It was an Indian boy, and he advanced to question him. If Jeanne and Pierre had pa.s.sed that way the boy must surely have seen them.
Before he had spoken the lad ran toward him, holding out something in his hand. The question on Philip"s lips changed to an exclamation of joy when he recognized the handkerchief which he had dropped upon the rock a few nights before, or one so near like it that he could not have told them apart. It was tied into a knot, and he felt the crumpling of paper under the pressure of his fingers. He almost tore the bit of lace and linen in his eagerness to rescue the paper, which a moment later he held in his fingers. Three short lines, written in a fine, old-fashioned hand, were all that it held for him. But they were sufficient to set his heart, beating wildly.
Will Monsieur come to the top of the rock to-night, some time between the hours of nine and ten.
There was no signature to the note, but Philip knew that only Jeanne could have written it, for the letters were almost of microscopic smallness, as delicate as the bit of lace in which they had been delivered, and of a quaintness of style which added still more to the bewildering mystery which already surrounded these people. He read the lines half a dozen times, and then turned to find that the Indian boy was slipping sway through the rocks.
"Here--you," he commanded, in English. "Come back!"
The boy"s white teeth gleamed in a laugh as he waved his hand and leaped farther away. From Philip his eyes shifted in a quick, searching glance to the top of the cliff. In a flash Philip followed its direction. He understood the meaning of the look. From the cliff Jeanne and Pierre had seen his approach, and their meeting with the Indian boy had made it possible for them to intercept him in this manner. They were probably looking down upon him now, and in the gladness of the moment Philip laughed up at the bare rocks and waved his cap above his head as a signal of his acceptance of the strange invitation he had received.
Vaguely he wondered why they had set the meeting for that night, when in three or four minutes he could have joined them up there in broad day. But the central tangle of the mystery that had grown up about him during the past few days was too perplexing to embroider with such a minor detail as this, and he turned back toward Churchill with the feeling that everything was working in his favor. During the next few hours he would clear up the tangle, and in addition to that he would meet Jeanne and Pierre. It was the thought of Jeanne, and not of the surprises which he was about to explain, that stirred his blood as he hurried back to the Fort.
It was his intention to return to Eileen and her father. But he changed this. He would first hunt up Gregson and begin his work there. He knew that the artist would be expecting him, and he went directly to the cabin, escaping notice by following along the fringe of the forest.
Gregson was pacing back and forth across the cabin floor when Philip arrived. His steps were quick and excited. His hands were thrust deep in his trousers pockets. The b.u.t.ts of innumerable half-smoked cigarettes lay scattered under his feet. He ceased his restless movement upon his companion"s interruption, and for a moment or two gazed at Philip in blank silence.
"Well," he said, at last, "have you got anything to say?"
"Nothing," said Philip. "It"s beyond me, Greggy. For Heaven"s sake give me an explanation!"
There was nothing womanish in the hard lines of Gregson"s face now. He spoke with the suggestion of a sneer.
"You knew--all the time," he said, coldly. "You knew that Miss Brokaw and the girl whom I drew were one and the same person. What was the object of your little sensation?"
Philip ignored his question. He stepped quickly up to Gregson and seized him by the arm.
"It is impossible!" he cried, in a low voice. "They cannot be the same person. That ship out there has not touched land since she left Halifax. Until she hove in sight off Churchill she hasn"t been within two hundred miles of a coast this side of Hudson"s Strait. Miss Brokaw is as new to this country as you. It is beyond all reason to suppose anything else."
"Nevertheless," said Gregson, quietly, "it was Miss Brokaw whom I saw the other day, and that is Miss Brokaw"s picture."
He pointed to the sketch, and freed his arm to light another cigarette.
There was a peculiar tone of finality in his voice which warned Philip that no amount of logic or arguing on his part would change his friend"s belief. Gregson looked at him over his lighted match.
"It was Miss Brokaw," he said again. "Perhaps it is within reason to suppose that she came to Churchill in a balloon, dropped into town for luncheon, and departed in a balloon, descending by some miraculous chance aboard the ship that was bringing her father. However it may have happened, she was in Churchill a few days ago. On that hypothesis I am going to work, and as a consequence I am going to ask you for the indefinite loan of the Lord Fitzhugh letter. Will you give me your word to say nothing of that letter--for a few days?"
"It is almost necessary to show it to Brokaw," hesitated Philip.
"Almost--but not quite," Gregson caught him up. "Brokaw knows the seriousness of the situation without that letter. See here, Phil--you go out and fight, and let me handle this end of the business. Don"t reveal me to the Brokaws. I don"t want to meet--her--yet, though G.o.d knows if it wasn"t for my confounded friendship for you I"d go over there with you this minute. She was even more beautiful than when I saw her--before."
"Then there is a difference," laughed Philip, meaningly.
"Not a difference, but a little better view," corrected the artist.
"Now, if we could only find the other girl, what a mess you"d be in, Greggy! By George, but this is beginning to have its humorous as well as its tragic side. I"d give a thousand dollars to have this other golden-haired beauty appear upon the scene!"
"I"ll give a thousand if you produce her," retorted Gregson.
"Good!" laughed Philip, holding out a hand. "I"ll report again this afternoon or to-night."
Inwardly he felt himself in no humorous mood as he retraced his steps to Churchill. He had thought to begin his work of clearing up the puzzling situation with Gregson, and Gregson had failed him completely by his persistence in the belief that Miss Brokaw was the girl whose face he had seen more than a week before. Was it possible, after all, that the ship had touched at some point up the coast? The supposition was preposterous. Yet before rejoining the Brokaws he sought out the captain and found that the company"s vessel had come directly from Halifax without a change or stop in her regular course. The word of the company"s captain cleared up his doubts in one direction; it mystified him more than ever in another. He was convinced that Gregson had not seen Miss Brokaw until that morning. But who was Eileen"s double? Where was she at this moment? What peculiar combination of circ.u.mstance had drawn them both to Churchill at this particularly significant time? It was impossible for him not to a.s.sociate the girl whom Gregson had encountered, and who so closely resembled Eileen, with Lord Fitzhugh and the plot against his company. And it struck him with a certain feeling of dread that, if his suspicions were true, Jeanne and Pierre must also be mixed up in the affair. For had not Jeanne, in her error, greeted Eileen as though she were a dear friend?
He went directly to the factor"s house, and knocked at the door opening into the rooms occupied by Brokaw and his daughter. Brokaw admitted him, and at Philip"s searching glance about the room he nodded toward a closed inner door and said:
"Eileen is resting. It"s been a hard trip on her, Phil, and she hasn"t slept for two consecutive nights since we left Halifax."
Philip"s keen glance told him that Brokaw himself had not slept much.
The promoter"s eyes were heavy, with little puffy bags under them. But otherwise he betrayed no signs of unrest or lack of rest. He motioned Philip to a chair close to a huge fireplace in which a pile of birch was leaping into flame, offered him a cigar, and plunged immediately into business.
"It"s h.e.l.l, Philip," he said, in a hard, quiet voice, as though he were restraining an outburst of pa.s.sion with effort. "In another three months we"d have been on a working basis, earning dividends. I"ve even gone to the point of making contracts that show us five hundred per cent, profit. And now--this!"
He dashed his half-burned cigar into the fire, and viciously bit the end from another.
Philip was lighting his own, and there was a moment"s silence, broken sharply by the financier.
"Are your men prepared to fight?"
"If it"s necessary," replied Philip. "We can at least depend upon a part of them, especially the men at Blind Indian Lake. But--this fighting--Why do you think it will come to that? If there is fighting we are ruined."