Hawtrey's Deputy Part 22

"But how have they lived up there? The whole land's frozen, isn't it, most of the year?"

"They'd sealing rifles, and the Koriaks make out farther north in their roofed-in pits. One can live on seal and walrus meat and blubber."

Agatha s.h.i.+vered. "But they'd no tents, or furs, or blankets. It's horrible to imagine it."

"Yes," said Wyllard, gravely, "that's why I'm going for them."

Agatha sat still a moment. She could realise the magnitude of the sacrifice he was making, and in some degree the hazards that he must face. It appealed to her with an overwhelming force, but she was also conscious of a strange dismay. Then she turned to him with a flush of colour in her cheeks and her eyes s.h.i.+ning.

"Oh," she said, "it's splendid!"

Wyllard smiled. "What could I do?" he said, "I sent them."

Then somewhat to Agatha's relief Mrs. Hastings came out of the house, and Wyllard moved away towards the stable to bring out her team.

CHAPTER XIV.

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 coa.r.s.er 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 fas.h.i.+on. "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 gra.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sure 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 antic.i.p.ating 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.