Blake's Burden. Bindloss Harold
said bears out my impression of him. I must renew our acquaintance when I am in Shropshire. Are you staying here long?"
Mrs. Keith was glad to change the subject, but while they talked a steward appeared with a letter for Millicent, which he explained had been sent on board the steamer at Quebec. As the girl laid down the opened envelope Mrs. Chudleigh recognized Sedgwick's writing and her face grew contemptuously hard. Then she laughed and started a different topic, which she continued for a time. When she went away, Mrs. Keith turned to Millicent.
"I wonder whether I have told her too much, though it's hard to see what use she can make of it. Innocent or not, Dick Blake is a favourite of mine and when I speak of him I'm apt to be unguarded. Of course, it's obvious that she joined us on purpose to talk about him."
"One would have imagined it was Captain Sedgwick. She dragged him in rather pointedly."
"Oh! no. That was by the way, and perhaps intended to put me off the scent. She's a scheming woman."
"But she has not learned much from you."
"She has learned two things," Mrs. Keith answered thoughtfully. "First, that I don't believe Dick Blake failed in his duty; and, secondly, that Colonel Challoner has some influence. I think she was particularly interested in the latter point. I've been incautious and let my tongue run away with me."
Then she took up her book while Millicent read her letter. Though young and to some extent inexperienced, her judgment was generally sound, and she had come to see how Sedgwick really regarded her. She had pleased his eye, and he was a man who would boldly grasp at what delighted him, but love would not be permitted to interfere with his ambitions. He wrote in a tone of forced and insincere sentiment, and his words brought a blush into Millicent's face as well as a rather bitter smile into her eyes. By and by she tore the sheet into pieces and dropped them over the steamer's rail. That affair was ended.
As the fragments of paper fluttered astern Mrs. Keith looked up. "You are treating somebody's letter very unceremoniously."
"Perhaps I am," said Millicent. "It's from Captain Sedgwick."
"Ah!" exclaimed Mrs. Keith. "Has he anything of interest to say?"
"He mentions that he is going back to Africa sooner than he expected because the officer above him has suffered so much from the climate that he has asked to be relieved of his post. Captain Sedgwick believes this will give him a chance of advancement."
"Then I've no doubt he'll make the most of it. I suppose he doesn't waste much pity on his unfortunate chief? The man's personal interest stands first with him."
"Isn't that the usual thing with men?"
"There are exceptions. Colonel Challoner, for instance, threw up his career when he found he was forced to act against his convictions, and I've a suspicion that another man I know made as great a sacrifice. However, Sedgwick will make every effort to get the vacant post, and I wonder whether he told Mrs. Chudleigh how matters stood. She may have had a letter before you did."
Millicent knew her employer's penetration, but did not understand the drift of her remarks.
"I dare say he wrote to her. She told us they were old friends. But why should it interest you?"
"It does," Mrs. Keith rejoined. "I have a habit of putting things together and drawing my conclusions, though, of course, I'm now and then mistaken. Whether I'm right or not in the present instance time will show, but I must try to watch the woman when we go home." Then she added sharply: "As you have torn it up, you don't mean to answer Sedgwick's letter?"
"No," said Millicent, with a trace of colour; "I don't think it needs a reply."
Mrs. Keith made a sign of agreement. "On the whole," she said pointedly, "I should imagine that to be a wise decision."
On reaching Saguenay, Mrs. Keith spent the first morning sitting outside her hotel. Rugged mountains with dark belts of pines straggling up their sides were spread about her, but she gave the wild grandeur of the landscape scanty attention as she consulted the engagement book in her hand. It contained a list of the friends she wished to entertain and the visits she had thought of making in England during the winter, and she wondered which could be shortened and whom she could put off, because it might be desirable to spend some time in Shropshire.
Margaret Keith was a strong-willed woman who had led a busy life, but now, when she had resolved to retire into the background and rest, it looked as if she might again be forced to take an active part in affairs. She had enjoyed her Canadian trip, but during the last week or two it had begun to lose its interest, and she was conscious of a call to be up and doing. She suspected Mrs. Chudleigh, she doubted Sedgwick, and she was disturbed by the way the unfortunate affair on the Indian frontier had cropped up again. Somehow, she felt Colonel Challoner's peace was threatened, which could not be permitted. For many years she had cherished a warm liking for him, and long ago, when he was a young lieutenant, she could have made him hers. Family arrangements, complicated by the interests of landed property, had, however, stood in the way. Challoner was not free to marry as he pleased; he had been taught that the desire of the individual must be subordinated to the welfare of the line, and when he first met Margaret Keith, who was beautiful then, it was too late for him to rebel. She let him go, but he had always had a place in her heart, and now they were firm and trusted friends.
During her stay at Saguenay, Mrs. Chudleigh made two or three attempts to extract some further information about the Challoners but without success, and one day, soon after she had left, Mrs. Keith sent Millicent for a list of steamer sailings.
"This place is very pretty, but we have been here some time and I'm beginning to think of home," she said.
"One of the Empresses sails next week," said Millicent, returning with the card. "Mr. Gordon told me this morning that Mrs. Chudleigh went in the Salmatian the day before he left Quebec."
"Did she?" Mrs. Keith rejoined. "Well, perhaps you had better write to the Montreal office about our berths." Then, for the call had grown clearer, she smiled as the girl went away, and added: "It might be wiser to keep the woman in sight."
CHAPTER VIII
THE PRAIRIE
A strong breeze swept the wide plain, blowing fine sand about, when Blake plodded beside the jaded Indian pony that drew his Red-river cart. It was loaded with preserved provisions, camp stores, and winter clothes, and he had bought it and the pony because that seemed cheaper than paying for transport. The settlement for which he was bound stands near the northern edge of the great sweep of grass which stretches across central Canada, and means of communication between it and the outer world were scarce. Harding, accordingly, had agreed to the purchase of the animal with the idea of selling it afterwards to one of the settlers.
Since leaving the railroad they had spent four days upon the trail, which sometimes ran plain before them, marked by dints of wheels among the wiry grass, and sometimes died away, leaving them at a loss in a wilderness of sand and short poplar scrub, through which Blake steered by compass. Now it was late in the afternoon and the men were tired of battling with the wind which buffeted their sunburned faces with sharp sand. They were crossing one of the high steppes of the middle prairie towards the belt of pines and muskegs which divides it from the barrens of the North. The broad stretch of fertile loam, where prosperous wooden towns are rising fast among the wheatfields, lay to the south of them, and the arid tract they journeyed through had so far no attraction for even the adventurous homestead pre-emptor.
They found it a bleak and cheerless country, crossed by the ravines of a few sluggish creeks, the water of which was unpleasant to drink, and dotted at long intervals by ponds bitter with alkali. In places, stunted poplar bluffs cut against the sky, but, for the most part, there was only a rolling waste of dingy grass. The trail was heavy, the wheels sank deep in sand as they climbed a low rise, and, to make things worse, the rounded, white-edged clouds which had scudded across the sky since morning were gathering in threatening masses. This had happened every afternoon, but now and then the cloud ranks had broken, to pour out a furious deluge and a blaze of lightning. Harding anxiously studied the sky.
"I guess we're up against another thunderstorm," he said. "My opinion of the mid-continental climate is