Deringham moved a trifle and glanced at his daughter. She had said very little, but there was a subtle something in her tone and bearing which implied a good deal, and he fancied it was not lost upon Miss Townshead.

The latter, however, glanced round towards her employer, and her face was once more expressionless as she said, "Then I hope you will find him progressing favourably, and it would be a kindness to my father and myself if you or Mr. Seaforth would send us word."

She went back to her duties, and Deringham smiled a little as the monotonous voice commenced again. "That's all right, Miss Townshead.

Now where was I? Oh, yes, we should not recommend any further advances. Did I tell him we had to negotiate Tyrer's bond at a discount?"

"You seem to have reversed your decision somewhat suddenly," he said.

"I had not noticed it before, but Miss Townshead is distinctly pretty.

She was, I believe, on tolerably good terms with our afflicted kinsman."

Miss Deringham laughed as she answered him. "That is one of our privileges, but you had better inquire about my baggage. I think I hear the train coming in."

She turned a moment as she went out of the saloon, and glanced back towards the table. She could only see that Miss Townshead's head was bent lower over the paper than it had been, but she had a suspicion as to what the girl was feeling. It was also partly, but not more than partly justified, for Nellie Townshead was writing mechanically just then, though now and then she drove the pencil somewhat viciously into the paper when the hasty words grew faster. "Don't consider your recommendation workable. We are sending you ore to test. Finish it up in the usual way."

Then the locomotive bell on the wharf was answered by the roar of the steamer's whistle, and the man folded up his papers. "You will have to get ashore, but we have done a good morning's work," said he. "Those were friends of yours from the old country?"

"No," said Nellie Townshead with a curious expression. "They are from the old country, but I only met them once or twice at Somasco."

The man glanced at her thoughtfully. "Yes," he said. "I kind of fancied the lady didn't mean to be nice to you."

Miss Townshead smiled, though there was an ominous brightness in her eyes. "I scarcely think she would take the trouble to make me feel that," she said. "Miss Deringham is, I understand, a lady of some importance in the old country."

The man once more regarded her with grave kindliness. "Folks of that kind can be very nasty prettily. I've met one or two of them. Well, you're one of the smartest business ladies I've come across yet in this country, and I should figure that's quite as good as the other.

Now--well, of course, we held back a little when we engaged you, and you can tell the cashier to hand you out another two dollars every Saturday."

Nellie Townshead felt that the colour was in her cheeks, but she thanked the man, and gathering up her papers hastened down the gangway at the last moment. She stopped a moment breathless when she reached the wharf and saw Deringham and his daughter drive away, and shut one little hand. Then she laughed, and turned towards the city with a gesture of impatience. "The two dollars are badly needed--and I'm a little fool, but it hurt, all of it," she said.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE AWAKENING

The snow had ceased an hour or two earlier, and the moon shone down upon the glistening pines that shook off their white covering under a bitter wind, when a wagon came lurching into the Somasco valley. Four weary horses floundered in front of it, a thin white steam rising from them into the nipping air, and Okanagan swayed half asleep upon the driving-seat, growling inarticulate objurgations when the vehicle sank creaking into a hollow he could not see. He had, wearing out several horses during the journey, driven close upon a hundred miles through the frost and snow, and had ceased to encourage his companions during the last hour or so. In fact, he was almost as incapable of speech just then as they were of comprehending him.

They had, however, won his admiration, which he was somewhat slow of according city folk, for although there had been times when, as he dragged the worn-out team up steep hillsides through the blinding snow, he almost despaired of reaching Somasco, he had heard no complaint from either Deringham or his daughter. The man had helped him where he could, and when there was nothing that he could do sat silent beside him smoking tranquilly, while, with the flung-up snow whirling about them, the team went floundering down almost precipitous gully or rutted declivity, where a stumble would have hurled them all into the tops of the pines below. Nor had a cry escaped the girl who sat behind them, gripping the side of the bouncing vehicle, when once a horse went down, and on another occasion the wagon left the trail and drove into a hemlock. Okanagan also remembered that though it had been necessary to lift her down when twice they stopped to change the team at a lonely ranch, she rose smiling with blue lips when it was time to go on again.

"Yes, sir," he afterwards said to Seaforth, "there wasn't any weakening down in either of them, and the girl's a daisy."

Deringham, however, was now sitting amidst the straw in the bottom of the wagon, with his arm about his daughter, who nestled close to him for the sake of warmth. A bitter frost had set in during the last hour or so, and the snow was frozen in white patches upon her wrappings, while it was with numbed senses she vacantly watched the pines flit past her. It seemed that they would crawl up out of the darkness and slide by, white beneath the moonlight, forever.

Nor could she recollect much of the journey, which had only left a hazy memory of biting cold and blinding snow, fierce struggles through the drifts, and brief interludes of warmth and brightness in forest-shrouded ranches, where her chilled flesh shrank from the task before her when she rose to go on again. There was Alton blood in Alice Deringham, and more than a trace of the Alton pride, but she did not know what motive had sustained her or why she had borne it all so patiently, and in this she differed from her father. Deringham seldom did anything without a purpose, and he had one now.

His daughter had been asleep with her head on his shoulder when a shout roused her two hours earlier, and with a drumming of hoofs they came lurching into the settlement. For a blissful moment she fancied the journey was at an end, for there were lights and voices and a pleasant smell of firwood smoke, but Okanagan shouted to his team, and the lights faded away behind as they plunged into the silence beneath the pines again.

"Father," she said faintly, "do you think he has gone the wrong way?

It seems ever so long since we left the settlement."

Okanagan may have heard her, though the words were almost indistinguishable. "You lie right where you are for another ten minutes, and keep warm, miss," he said; "then I'll show you something."

Alice Deringham shivered all through. "It is a little difficult," she said.

Okanagan spoke to his horses, and after what appeared an interminable time looked down again.

"There," he said, with a curious, almost silent laugh, and the girl saw a red blink amidst the pines across the valley. "That's Somasco."

Alice Deringham let her head drop back on her father's shoulder with a little sigh. "It seems a very long way," she said, "and I am very cold."

It was some time later when the wagon stopped with a jerk, and she roused herself as a glare of light shone about her. Voices came out of it, somebody held out a hand, and a man whom she did not recognize lifted her from the wagon. Then she walked unevenly into the brightness of a log-walled hall and grew faint, while a tingling pain ran through her with the change of temperature. A woman whom she did not know clumsily took her wrappings from her, and then led her into a room where Seaforth drew a chair up to a table beside the stove. Alice Deringham's head was throbbing, but she could see that he was white and haggard.

"How is he?" she said, and the tingling pain grew more pronounced as she waited the answer.

Seaforth's face was very grave. "I think it is touch and go with him--but if he wears the night out he may pull through. It was very good of you to come."

Alice Deringham made a little gesture of impatience. "But there is hope?" she said, and her voice was very low and strained.

Seaforth glanced round sharply as the woman, knocking over something, went out of the room.

"A little, I believe, if he could sleep," he said huskily. "The doctor is with him now--scarcely left him the last four days. We have nobody to help us. Mrs. Margery broke down. The woman you saw is incapable.

Harry has been delirious--and asking for you--half the time."

Seaforth looked at his companion as he spoke, and the girl met his gaze directly. There was no room for anything but frankness at such a time.

"Ah," she said simply. "I am glad I came."

Seaforth's eyes seemed to grow a little misty, and Alice Deringham, who suddenly looked aside, wondered whether it was only the effect of weariness. Whatever he felt, he, however, quietly poured something into a cup and handed it to her. "But you must eat," he said.

Hungry and cold as she had been, the girl could eat but little, though the steaming liquid in the cup put a little life into her, and presently she rose up and shook off the coarse shawl which somebody had wrapped about her shoulders.

"I am ready now," she said.

Seaforth glanced at her a moment with open admiration. The girl to hide her weariness stood very straight, and Alice Deringham knew how to hold herself. The pallor in her face intensified the little glow in her eyes and the ruddy gleam of her lustrous hair under the lamplight.

She was, it seemed to him, almost splendid in her statuesque symmetry, but there was also a subtle change in her, and a sudden sense of confusion came upon him. He remembered his previous distrust of her, and that it was to save his comrade she had come.

"No," he said quietly; "you must rest and sleep before you go to him."

Alice Deringham smiled a little, but there was a vibration in her voice that stirred the man. "Do you think I could?"

This time there was no mistaking the faint haziness in Seaforth's eyes.

"God bless you," he said simply. "He is my friend--and I think you are the only one who can do anything for him."

Alice Deringham had in her a trace of greatness which was instinctive, and not the result of the training that had taught her serenity. So, though the man had not hidden his meaning, she made no protest nor asked any question.

"All this is new to me," she said; "but I will do the best I can."

Seaforth led her into a room where a dim light was burning. It was most of it in shadow, but she could see the still form on the bed, and for a moment or two nothing else. The face on the pillow was very white and hollow, the half-closed eyes had a curious glitter, while a lean hand was clenched upon the coverlet. Alice Deringham had seen very little of suffering of any kind, and nothing of sickness, and for a moment she stood motionless, horrified at the sight of what was left of the man who had parted from her on the verandah the incarnation of resolute virility. As she watched him he moaned a little, and the sound, which was scarcely human and suggested the cry of some unreasoning creature in pain, sent a thrill through her. Her eyes dimmed a little, and moving forward softly she laid a cool palm on the flushed forehead.

"Don't you know me, Harry? I have come to take care of you," she said.