"Oh, Miss Blanchard! how could I do that, an' have Jim 'run in' again the first thing? If he knew I came an' told you, even, he'd half kill me, the way he's in now! I've been thinkin' an' thinkin', an' there's only one way I can see to stop mischief, and that is, if you could only manage to walk home with Mr. Pomeroy this evenin'."
"I?" asked Nora, much startled at such a proposition.
"Yes, miss, if you were there, I know Jim wouldn't lay a hand on him. He thinks an awful lot of you mostly for the notice you've took of Nelly—for all he's so mad at her just now. If you were walkin' with Mr. Pomeroy he'd never think of makin' any row. You could keep talkin' with him all the way, so they'd know you were there. And then no one need ever know anything about it. And when Jim's sober to-morrow, you might come and talk to him a bit. But if you could only get Mr. Pomeroy to stop hangin' round Nelly, it would be best of all. That was what I wanted to ask you, any way. For I do think he would, if you spoke to him."
Nora had been rapidly thinking the matter over, as Lizzie spoke. At least, she thought, she could try. And the crisis, such as it was, appealed to a natural, chivalrous love of adventure, that she doubtless inherited from her brave pioneer ancestors.
"Well, Lizzie," she said, "I'll do what you ask, and I only hope it will prove effectual."
And then she stopped Lizzie's torrent of warm gratitude by making some inquiries about Mrs. Travers. Lizzie was evidently unwilling to say anything about her friend's weakness, but Nora drew from her enough to show that the poor young woman was subject to fits of restless excitability, when it seemed as if she must have the stimulus she craved.
"She's told me she could jump over a ten-barred gate to get it, at such times," Lizzie said, sorrowfully. "And then she'd be down in the depths of misery afterwards. An' the poor little thing would look so scared, when her mother took these turns! She wouldn't know what to make of it, though she did get kind of used to it, too."
Nora had not, just then, much time to think of Mrs. Travers, however. As soon as Lizzie left her, she began to arrange her plan of operation. She would have to do something that would surprise Mr. Harold Pomeroy a little, but that could not be helped. Had her brother been there, she would have solved the problem by asking him to call for Mr. Pomeroy and drive him home, giving him a hint of her reason; but he was out on his rounds, and there was no knowing how long he might be away. And Nora knew that it would not do to risk anything; for, independently of the consequences to those chiefly concerned, any lawless act of violence of this kind would seriously complicate matters, and, moreover, bring additional odium on Mr. Graeme and on the cause in which she had become so strongly interested.
She took a long walk alone, in the dreamy slanting sunshine of the mild winter afternoon, the genial balmy air, and the soft purplish haze seeming like a presage of the coming spring. The calm beauty of the approaching evening, the rose and amber tints of the western sky as the sun set red through the haze, soothed the slight nervous excitement that her errand naturally produced. She walked a long way past the Pomeroy mill, noting, in her walk, how many wretched-looking houses there were, just like Lizzie's, in its close vicinity; and thinking that these were, doubtless, the places where her brother apprehended an outbreak of some epidemic, as soon as the warm weather of spring should have set in.
She took good care, however, to be back at the mill, before Harold Pomeroy should be likely to think of returning. It was getting near dusk, and the office windows alone were lighted, the rest of the building looming up, dark and blank—a contrast to its usual effect at this hour. Nora walked up, unhesitatingly, and knocked at the office door.