The last reason, as she had foreseen, proved irresistible to Agatha, and she made a sign of concurrence.

"If you will drive me over I will do what I can," she said.

Now she had succeeded Mrs. Hastings lost no time, and they set out for the Creightons' homestead next day, while soon after they reached it she tactfully contrived that Sally should be left alone with Agatha.

They stood outside the house together when the latter turned to her companion.

"Sally," she said, "there is something that I must tell you."

Sally glanced at her face, and then walked quietly forward until the log barn hid them from the house. Then she sat down upon a pile of straw in its shadow and signed to Agatha that she should take a place beside her.

"Now," she said sharply, "you can go on; it's about Gregory?"

Agatha, who found it very difficult to begin, though she had been well primed by Hastings on the previous evening, sat down amidst the straw, and looked about her for a moment or two. It was a hot afternoon, dazzlingly bright, and almost breathlessly still. In front of her the dark green wheat rolled waist-high, and beyond it the vast sweep of whitened gra.s.s rolled back to the sky-line flooded with light. Far away a team and a waggon slowly moved across it, but that was the only sign of life, and no sound from the house reached them to break the heavy stillness.

Then she nerved herself to the effort, and spoke quietly for several minutes before she glanced at her companion. It was very evident that the latter had understood all that she had said, for she sat very still with a hard, set face.

"Oh!" she said, "if I'd thought you'd come to tell me this because you were vexed with me, I'd know what to do."

This was what Agatha had dreaded. It certainly looked as if she had come to triumph over her rival's humiliation, but Sally made it clear that she acquitted her of that intention.

"Still," she said, "I know that wasn't the reason, and I'm not mad with--you. It hurts"--and she made a little abrupt movement--"but I know it's true." Then she turned to Agatha suddenly. "Why did you do it?"

"I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I thought you might save Gregory, if I told you.'"]

"That was all?" and Sally looked at her with incredulous eyes.

"No," said Agatha simply, "that was only part. It did not seem right that Gregory should go against Wyllard's wishes, and gamble the Range away on the wheat market."

She admitted it without hesitation, for she realised now exactly what had animated her to seek this painful interview. She was fighting Wyllard's battle, and that fact sustained her.

Sally winced. "Yes," she said, "I guess you had to tell me. He was fond of you. One could be proud of that. Harry Wyllard never did anything low down and mean."

Agatha did not resent her candour. Although this was a thing she would scarcely have credited a little while ago, she saw that the girl felt the contrast between her lover's character and that of the man whose place he had taken, and regretted it. Then Agatha's eyes grew a trifle hazy.

"Wyllard, they think, is dead," she said, in a low, strained voice.

"You have Gregory still."

Sally looked at her with unveiled compa.s.sion, and Agatha did not shrink from it.

"Yes," she said, with a simplicity that became her, "and Gregory must have someone to--take care of him. I must do it if I can."

There was no doubt that Agatha was stirred. This half-taught girl's quiet acceptance of the burden that many women must carry once more made her almost ashamed.

"We will leave it to you," she said.

Then it became evident that there was another side to Sally's character, for her manner changed, and the suggestive hardness crept back into her eyes.

"Well," she said, "I'd most been expecting something of this kind when I heard that man Edmonds was going to the Range. He has got a pull on Gregory, but he's surely not going to feel quite happy when I get hold of him."

She rose in another moment, and, saying nothing further, walked back towards the house, in front of which they came upon Mrs. Hastings.

Sally looked at the latter significantly.

"I'm going over to the Range after supper," she said.

Mrs. Hastings drove away with Agatha, and said very little to her during the journey, but an hour after they had reached the homestead she slipped quietly into the girl's room, and found her lying in a big chair, sobbing bitterly. She sat down close beside her, and laid a hand upon her shoulder.

"I don't think Sally could have said anything to trouble you like this," she said.

It was a moment or two before Agatha turned a wet, white face towards her, and saw gentle sympathy in her eyes. There was, she felt, no cause for reticence.

"No," she said, "it was the contrast between us. She has Gregory."

Mrs. Hastings made a sign of comprehension. "And you have lost Harry--but I think you have not lost him altogether. We do not know that he is dead--but even if it is so, it was all that was finest in him he offered you. It is yours still."

She broke off, and sat silent a moment or two before she went on again.

"My dear, it is, perhaps, cold comfort, and I am not sure that I can make what I feel quite clear. Still, Harry was only human, and it is almost inevitable that, had it all turned out differently, he would have said and done things that would have offended you. Now he has left you a purged and stainless memory--one I think which must come very near to the reality. The man who went up there--for an idea, a fantastic point of honour--sloughed off every taint of the baseness that hampers most of us in doing it. It was a man changed and uplifted above all petty things by a high chivalrous purpose, who made that last grim journey."

Agatha realised the truth of this. Already Wyllard's memory had become etherealised, and she treasured it as a very fine and precious thing.

Still, though he now wore immortal laurels, that would not content her when all her human nature cried out for his bodily presence. She wanted him, as she had grown to love him, in the warm, erring flesh, and the vague, splendid vision was cold and far remote. There was a barrier greater than that of crashing ice and bitter water between them.

"Oh!" she said. "I have felt that. I try to feel it always--but just now it's not enough."

Then she turned her face away with a bitter sob, and Mrs. Hastings who stooped and kissed her went out quietly. She knew what had come about, and that the girl had broken down at last, after months of strain.

In the meanwhile, it happened that Edmonds, the mortgage broker, drove over to the Range, and found Hawtrey waiting him in Wyllard's room. It was early in the evening, and he could see the hired men busy outside tossing prairie hay from the waggons into the great barn. They were half-naked and grimed with dust, but Hawtrey, who was dressed in store clothes, had evidently taken no share in their labours. When Edmonds came in he turned to him with anxiety in his face.

"Well?" he said sharply.

"Market's a little stiffer," said Edmonds.

He sat down and stretched out his hand towards the cigar-box on the table, while Hawtrey waited until he had picked one out with very evident impatience.

"Still moving up?" he asked.

Edmonds nodded. "It's the other folks' last stand," he said. "With the wheat ripening as it's doing, the flood that will pour in before the next two months are out will sweep them off the market. I was half afraid from your note that this little rally had some weight with you, and that as one result of it you meant to cover now."

"That," admitted Hawtrey, "was in my mind."

"Then," said his companion, "it's a pity."

Hawtrey leaned upon the table with hesitation in his face and att.i.tude.

He had neither the courage nor the steadfastness to make a gambler, and every fluctuation of the market swayed him to and fro. He had a good deal of wheat to deliver by and bye, and, for prices had fallen steadily until a week or two ago, he could still secure a very desirable margin if he bought in against his sales now. Unfortunately, however, he had once or twice lost heavily in an unexpected rally, and he greatly desired to recoup himself. Then, he had decided, nothing would tempt him to take part in another deal.

"If I hold on and the market stiffens further I'll be awkwardly fixed,"

he said. "Wyllard made a will, and in a few months I'll have to hand everything over to his executors. There would naturally be unpleasantness over a serious shortage."