"I believe you have something to tell me, Miss Waynefleet," he said.
"Still, I would sooner you didn"t, if it will hurt you. After all, it"s rather more than possible that I can arrive at the information by some other means."
The tinge of colour grew plainer in Laura"s face, but it was evident that she laid a firm restraint upon herself. "Ah!" she cried, "it has hurt me horribly already. I can"t get over the shame of it. But that isn"t what I meant to speak of. I feel"--and her voice grew tense and strained--"I must try to save you and the others from a piece of wicked treachery."
She straightened herself, and there was a flash in her eyes, but Nasmyth raised one hand.
"No," he protested, almost sternly, "I can"t let you do this. You would remember it ever afterwards with regret."
The girl seemed to nerve herself for an effort, and when she spoke her voice was impressively quiet.
"You must listen and try to understand," she said.
"It is not only because it would hurt me to see you and the others tricked out of what you have worked so hard for that I feel I must tell you. If there was nothing more than that, I might, perhaps, never have told you, after all. I want to save my father from a shameful thing." Her voice broke away, and the crimson flush on her face deepened as she went on again. "He has been offering to sell land that can"t belong to him," she a.s.serted accusingly.
Nasmyth felt sorry for her, and he made an attempt to offer her a grain of consolation.
"A few acres are really his," he said. "I made them over to him."
"To be his only if he did his share, and when the scheme proved successful," Laura interrupted. "I know, if he has sold them, what an opportunity of hara.s.sing you it will give the men who are plotting against you. Still, now you know, you can, perhaps, break off the bargain. I want you to do what you can"--and she glanced at him with a tense look in her eyes--"if it is only to save him."
"That," replied Nasmyth quietly, "is, for quite another reason, the object I have in view. I would like you to understand that I have guessed that he had failed us already. It may be some little consolation. Now, perhaps, you had better tell me exactly what you know."
Laura did so, and it proved to be no more than Nasmyth had suspected.
Letters had pa.s.sed between Waynefleet and somebody in Victoria, and the day after he left for that city two men, who had evidently crossed him on the way, arrived at the ranch. One said his name was Hames, and his conversation suggested that he supposed the girl was acquainted with her father"s affairs. In any case, what he said made it clear that he had either purchased, or was about to purchase from Waynefleet, certain land in the valley. After staying half an hour, the men had, Laura understood, set out again for Victoria.
When she had told him this, Nasmyth sat thoughtfully silent a minute or two. Her courage and hatred of injustice had stirred him deeply, for he knew what it must have cost her to discuss the subject of her father"s wrongdoing with him. He was also once more overwhelmingly sorry for her. There was n.o.body she could turn to for support or sympathy, and it was evident that if he succeeded in foiling Hames, it would alienate her from her father. Waynefleet, he felt, was not likely to forgive her for the efforts she had made to save him from being drawn into an act of profitable treachery.
"Well," he said after a moment"s thought, "I am going on to Victoria to see what can be done, but there is another matter that is troubling me. I wonder if it has occurred to you that your father will find it very difficult to stay on at the ranch when the part he has played becomes apparent. I am almost afraid the boys will be vindictive."
"I believe he has not expected to carry on the ranch much longer. It is heavily mortgaged, and he has been continually pressed for money."
"Has he any plans?"
Laura smiled wearily. "He has always plans. I believe he intends to go to one of the towns on Puget Sound, and start a land agency." She made a dejected gesture. "I don"t expect him to succeed in it, but perhaps I could earn a little."
Nasmyth set his lips tight, and there was concern in his face. She looked very forlorn, and he knew that she was friendless. He could hardly bring himself to contemplate the probability of her being cast adrift, saddled with a man who, it was evident, would only involve her in fresh disasters, and, he fancied, reproach her as the cause of them. A gleam of anger crept into his eyes.
"If your father had only held on with us, I could have saved you this," he observed.
There was a great sadness in Laura"s smile.
"Still," she replied, "he didn"t, and perhaps you couldn"t have expected it of him. He sees only the difficulties, and I am afraid never tries to face them."
Nasmyth felt his self-control deserting him. He was conscious of an almost overwhelming desire to save the girl from the results of her father"s dishonesty and folly, and he could see no way in which it could be done. Then it was borne in upon him that in another moment or two he would probably say or do something that he would regret afterwards, and she would resent, and, rising stiffly, he held out his hand.
"I must push on to the railroad," he said, and he held the hand she gave him in a firm clasp. "Miss Waynefleet, you saved my life, and I believe I owe you quite as much in other ways. It"s a fact that neither of us can attempt to disregard. I want you to promise that you will, at least, not leave the ranch without telling me."
Laura flashed a quick glance at him, and perhaps she saw more than he suspected in his insistent gaze, for she strove to draw her hand away.
He held it fast, however, while his nerves thrilled and his heart beat furiously. He remembered Violet Hamilton vaguely, but there came upon him a compelling desire to draw this girl to whom he owed so much into his arms and comfort her. They both stood very still a moment, and Nasmyth heard the snapping of the stove with a startling distinctness. Then--and it cost him a strenuous effort--he let her hand go.
"You will promise," he insisted hoa.r.s.ely.
"Yes," answered Laura, "before I go away I will tell you."
Nasmyth went out into the blackness and the rain, while Laura sat trembling until she heard the beat of his horse"s hoofs. Then she sank lower, a limp huddled figure, in the canvas chair. The stove snapped noisily, and the pines outside set up a doleful wailing, but, except for that, it was very still in the desolate ranch.
Nasmyth rode on until he borrowed a fresh horse from a man who lived a few miles along the trail. There was a cheerful light from the windows as he rode into a little settlement, and the trail to the railroad led through dripping forest and over a towering range, but he did not draw bridle. He was aching all over, and the water ran from his garments, but he scarcely seemed to feel his weariness then, and he pushed on resolutely through the rain up the climbing trail.
He remembered very little of that ride afterwards, or what he thought about during it. The strain of the last few minutes he had pa.s.sed at Waynefleet"s ranch had left him dazed, and part of his numbness, at least, was due to weariness. Several times he was almost flung from the saddle as the horse scrambled down a slope of rock.
Willow-branches lashed him as he pushed through the thickets, and in one place it was only by a grim effort that he drove the frightened beast to ford a flooded creek. Then there was a strip of hillside to be skirted, where the slope was almost sheer beneath the edge of the winding trail, and the rain that drove up the valley beat into his eyes. Still he held on, and two hours after sunrise rode half asleep into the little mining town. There was a train in the station, and, turning the horse over to a man he met, he climbed, dripping as he was, into a car.
CHAPTER XXIX
A FUTILE SCHEME
There was bright sunshine at Bonavista when Nasmyth, who had been told at the station that Acton had arrived from Victoria the day before, limped out from the shadow of the surrounding Bush, and stood still a moment or two, glancing across the trim lawn and terrace towards the wooden house. The s.p.a.cious dwelling, gay with its brightly painted lattice shutters, dainty scroll-work, and colonnades of wooden pillars, rose against the sombre woods, and he wondered with some anxiety whether Mrs. Acton had many guests in it. He had no desire to fall in with any strangers, for he was worn out and aching, and he still wore the old duck clothing in which he had left the canon. It might, he fancied, be possible to slip into the house and change before he presented himself to Mrs. Acton, though he was by no means sure that the garments in the valise he carried in his hand were dry.
He could see n.o.body on the terrace, and moved forward hastily until he stopped in consternation as he crossed one of the verandas. The sunlight streamed in, and Mrs. Acton and Violet Hamilton sat upon the seat which ran along the back of it. The girl started when she saw him, and Nasmyth stood looking down on her, worn in face and heavy-eyed, with his workman"s garb clinging, tight and mire-stained, about his limbs. There was, however, a certain grimness in his smile.
He had seen the girl"s start and her momentary shrinking, and it occurred to him that there was a significance in the fact that it had not greatly hurt him.
"I must make my excuses for turning up in this condition," he apologized. "I had to start for the railroad at a moment"s notice, and it rained all the way, while, when I reached it, the train was in the depot. You see, my business is rather urgent."
Mrs. Acton laughed. "Evidently," she said. "I think we were both a trifle startled when we saw you. I should be sorry to hear that anything had gone seriously wrong, but you remind one of the man who brought the news of Flodden."
Nasmyth made a quick gesture of denial. "Well," he announced bravely, "our standard is flying yet, and I almost think we can make another rally or two. Still, I have come for reinforcements. Mr. Acton is in?"
"He is. As it happened, he came up from Victoria yesterday. I believe he is discussing some repairs to the steamer with George just now.
I"ll send you out a plate of something and a gla.s.s of wine. You can"t have had any lunch."
Mrs. Acton rose, and Nasmyth, who sat down, looked at Violet with a smile. She was evidently not quite at ease.
"You really haven"t welcomed me very effusively," he remarked.
The girl flushed. "I don"t think I could be blamed for that," she returned. "I was startled."
"And perhaps just a little annoyed?"
The colour grew plainer in Violet"s cheeks. "Well," she averred, "that isn"t so very unnatural. After all, I don"t mind admitting that I wish you hadn"t come like this."
Nasmyth glanced down at his attire, and nodded gravely. "It"s certainly not altogether becoming," he admitted. "I made that hole drilling, but I fancied I had mended the thing. Still, you see, I had to start on the moment, and I rode most of twenty-four hours in the rain. I suppose"--and he hesitated while he studied her face--"I might have tidied myself at the depot, but, as it happened, I didn"t think of it, which was, no doubt, very wrong of me."
"It was, at least, a little inconsiderate."
Nasmyth laughed good-humouredly, though he recognized that neither his weariness nor the fact that it must manifestly be business of some consequence that had brought him there in that guise had any weight with her. He had, after all, a wide toleration, and he acknowledged to himself that her resentment was not unreasonable.