Masters of the Wheat-Lands Part 23

He seized both her hands, holding them firmly.

"That is my last word. At least, you will let me think that when I go up yonder into the mists and snow I shall take your good wishes for my success away with me."

She lifted her flushed face, and once looked him steadily in the eyes.

"My good wishes are yours, most fervently," she replied. "It would be intolerable that you should fail."

He looked sad as he let her hands fall. "After all," he said, "one can do only what one can."

He went away without another glance at her.

Not long afterwards Mrs. Hastings, who was possessed of a reasonable measure of curiosity, found occasion to enter the room.

"You have said something to trouble Harry?" she began.

"I'm not sure he's greatly troubled. In any case, I told him I would not marry him," Agatha answered.

Mrs. Hastings gave her a glance of compa.s.sionate astonishment.

"Oh," she said, "he's mad. Did he tell you that he means to leave Gregory in charge of Willow Range?"

Agatha's face showed her surprise, but Mrs. Hastings nodded rea.s.suringly.

"It's a fact," she a.s.serted. "He asked Gregory to meet him here to save time, and"--she turned towards the window--"there's his wagon now."

She went to the door, and then turned again.

"Is there any blood--red blood we will call it--or even common-sense in you? You could have kept Harry here if you had wanted to do so?"

"No," replied Agatha, "I don't think I could. I'm not even sure that, if I'd had the right, I would have done it. He recognized that."

Mrs. Hastings looked at her dubiously. "Then," she commented, "you have either a somewhat extraordinary character, or you are in love with him in a way that is beyond most of us. In any case, I can't help feeling that you will be sorry some day for what you have done."

Next moment the door closed with a bang, and Agatha was left alone to a.n.a.lyze her sensations during her interview with Wyllard. She found the task difficult, for her memory of what had happened was confused and fragmentary. She had certainly been angry with Wyllard. It was humiliating that he had evidently taken it for granted that the greater security she would enjoy as his wife would have preponderance of weight with her, yet there was a certain satisfaction in the reflection that to leave her dependent upon Mrs. Hastings caused him concern. For another thing, his reserve had been perplexing, and it was borne in upon her that it would have cost her a more determined effort to withstand him had he spoken with fire and pa.s.sion.

If the man had been fervently in love with her, why had he not insisted on that fact? she asked herself. Could it have been because, with the fantastic generosity of which he was evidently capable, he had been willing to leave his friend unhandicapped with an open field? That seemed too much to expect from any man. Then there was the other explanation--that he preferred to leave the choice wholly to her, lest he should tempt her too strongly to break faith with Gregory. This idea brought the blood to her face since it suggested that he believed that he had merely to urge her sufficiently in order to make her yield. There was, it seemed, no satisfactory explanation at all! The one fact remained that he had made her a dispa.s.sionate offer of marriage, and had left her to decide.

Wyllard could not have made the matter very much clearer. Shrewdly practical, as he was in some respects, there were times when he acted blindly, merely doing without reasoning what he felt sub-consciously was right. This had more than once involved him in disaster, but in the long run the failures of such men often prove better than the dictates of calculating wisdom.

Agatha found a momentary relief from her thoughts as she watched Hawtrey get down from his wagon and approach the house. The change in him was plainer than it had ever been. It may have been because she had now a standard of comparison that it was so apparent. He was tall and well-favored, and he moved with a jaunty yet not ungraceful swing; but it seemed to her that his bearing was merely the result of an empty self-sufficiency. There was, she felt, no force behind it. Gregory was smiling, and there was certainly a hint of sensuality in his face which suggested that the man might sink into a self-indulgent coa.r.s.eness.

Agatha remembered that she was still pledged to him and determinedly brushed these thoughts aside.

Hawtrey entered a room where, with a paper in his hand, Wyllard sat awaiting him.

"I asked you to drive over here because it would save time," said Wyllard. "I have to go in to the railroad at once. Here's a draft of the scheme I suggested. You had better tell me if there's anything you're not quite satisfied with."

He threw the paper on the table, and Hawtrey took it up.

"I'm to farm and generally manage the Range on your behalf," said Hawtrey after reading its contents. "My percentage to be deducted after harvest. I'm empowered to sell out grain or horses as appears advisable, and to have the use of teams and implements for my own place when occasion requires it."

He looked up. "I've no fault to find with the thing, Harry. It's generous."

"Then you had better sign it, and we'll get Hastings to witness it in a minute or two. In the meanwhile there's a thing I have to ask you. How do you stand in regard to Miss Ismay?"

Hawtrey pushed his chair back noisily. "That," he said, "is a subject on which I'm naturally not disposed to give you any information. How does it concern you?"

"In this way. Believing that your engagement must be broken off, I asked Miss Ismay to marry me."

Hawtrey was clearly startled, but in a moment or two he smiled.

"Of course," he said, "she wouldn't. As a matter of fact, our engagement isn't broken off. It's merely extended."

The two men looked at each other in silence for a moment or two, and there was a curious hardness in Wyllard's eyes. Hawtrey spoke again.

"In view of what you have just told me, why did you want to put me, of all people, in charge of the Range?" he asked.

"I'll be candid," answered Wyllard. "For one thing, you held on when I was slipping off the trestle that day in British Columbia. For another, you'll make nothing of your own holding, and if you run the Range as it ought to be run it will put a good many dollars into your pocket, besides relieving me of a big anxiety. If you're to marry Miss Ismay, I'd sooner she was made reasonably comfortable."

Hawtrey looked up with a flush in his face.

"Harry," he said, "this is extravagantly generous."

"Wait," returned Wyllard; "there's a little more to be said. I can't be back before the frost, and I may be away eighteen months. While I am away you will have a clear field--and you must make the most of it. If you are not married when I come back I shall ask Miss Ismay again.

Now"--and he glanced at his comrade steadily--"does this stand in the way of you're going on with the arrangement we have arrived at?"

There was a rather tense silence for a moment or two, and then Hawtrey said:

"No; after all there is no reason why it should do so. It has no practical bearing upon the other question."

Wyllard rose. "Well," he suggested, "if you will call Allen Hastings in we'll get this thing fixed up."

The doc.u.ment was duly signed, and a few minutes later Wyllard drove away.

Mrs. Hastings contrived to have a few words with Hawtrey before he left the house.

"I've no doubt that Harry took you into his confidence on a certain point," she remarked.

"Yes," admitted Hawtrey, "he did. I was a little astonished, besides feeling rather sorry for him. There is, however, reason to believe that he'll soon get over it."

"You feel sure of that?" Mrs. Hastings smiled.

"Isn't it evident? If he had cared much about her he certainly wouldn't have gone away."

"You mean you wouldn't?"

"No," declared Hawtrey, "there's no doubt of that."

Mrs. Hastings smiled again. "Well," she commented, "I would like to think you were right about Harry; it would be a relief to me."