“I am very sorry to have troubled you,” began Bertha, in a faltering tone.
“Do not mention the trouble, Miss Doyne; I shall be only too glad to serve you if I can. The worry of it all is that my powers are so limited in this respect,” said Inspector Grant kindly.
“Oh, we are not in difficulties of that sort,” said Bertha quickly, understanding all at once that this big burly superintendent supposed that she had come to beg for money or food. “I have come because I want to see Mr. Bradgate, only somehow my courage failed me, and so I asked to see you first. Mr. Bradgate does not know me, or at least he would not remember me, and it is so awkward to be obliged to recall one’s self to a person, and I thought that perhaps you would help me.”
“Mr. Bradgate has very good cause to remember you, anyway, seeing that but for your kindly offices he must have perished from cold,” said the inspector genially. He was feeling immensely relieved because it was no trouble of straitened means which had brought Bertha to ask his help that day. He felt himself equal to most other situations, but this long winter of struggle, following on the disaster of the harvest, had seriously impoverished him; since it was not easy for him to bear the sight of suffering while he had money in his pocket to relieve it.
“Oh, that was nothing!” broke in Bertha hastily. “And my errand to Mr. Bradgate has nothing to do with that either, but I have found out by a strange accident that he is the man whose boat was caught on the rocks at Mestlebury, in Nova Scotia, a year ago last fall, and something of value was left behind in my keeping which I have never been able to restore, because I did not know his name or where he came from. So I have come over from Duck Flats to restore his property to him, and—and I thought perhaps that you would help me to do it.”
“I would with pleasure if I could, but Mr. Bradgate is not here now; he went away three days ago,” replied the inspector.
A blank look came into Bertha’s face, and a horrible desire to cry assailed her. She had been so delighted at the thought of getting rid of the stones, and she had faced all the discomforts of that journey to Rownton with a cheerful courage, just because of the relief it was to bring her. Now it would all have to go on again, the waiting and the uncertainty, and, to make matters worse, she had those horrid stones on her person, and must of necessity carry them home with her again.
Pulling herself together with a tremendous effort, she managed to ask quietly, “Can you give me his address, then? It is very important that I should be put into communication with him as soon as possible, or I would not trouble you.”
“I am only too anxious to serve you in any way that I can, but I am very much afraid that Mr. Bradgate’s address is what they would call in some circles a negligible quantity. He has gone to railhead to work, and it is very difficult to make sure that a letter will reach him, although of course you can try. You will also have to take your chance of a reply being forthcoming, as pens, ink, and paper are almost unknown luxuries in a railway construction camp,” said the inspector.
A cold despair gripped at Bertha, and then an indomitable determination seized her to get rid of those stones at all costs, and she asked abruptly, “Where is railhead?”