“You did me a real kindness in coming up to Brocken Ridge to fetch me away, for otherwise I might have had to wait at least another week for this news, and think what that means to a man in my position,” he said earnestly.
But Bertha was not disposed to sit passive under an imputation of such a kind, and so she said spiritedly: “You are quite wrong in thinking that I came so far to fetch you away. Nothing was further from my thoughts than that you would take the trouble to come back with me. Indeed, I would not have permitted it in any case, had it not been for Mrs. Walford’s trouble about me. She had got it into her head that she would have to come back as far as Rownton with me herself, and the mere prospect of another railway journey, after her experience on the bridge, was more than she could stand, poor thing.”
“All the same, it was manifestly my duty to do what I could for you, seeing how carefully you had guarded what you deemed to be my property, and it was a pleasure also,” he answered, with such a sudden softening in his tone, that Bertha coloured hotly in spite of herself, and then was intensely ashamed because of her silliness.
The horse had its own notions of what was required of it in the matter of pace, and went ahead in a fashion that was so satisfactory as to leave Bertha but little to do in the way of driving. The halfway house was passed, and they just stopped to leave a message which might be given to anyone from Pentland Broads, to the effect that the wagon belonging to Bill Humphries was returning by way of Duck Flats instead of by the direct trail, and then the horse went on again with unabated vigour, until the place was reached where the cross-trail forked through Benson’s wheat.
Then, indeed, the horse did object, and was disposed to fight for its own ideas in the matter of route. But Bertha had not been compelled to bear with old Pucker’s obstinacy so long without learning a good deal about the whims and fancies to which horseflesh is liable, so she humoured and coaxed the big creature, even getting down from the wagon, and with her arms round its neck talked to it as if it had been a troublesome child, until it was soothed and convinced that one way would do as well as another; then she clambered back into the wagon again, and the animal went forward at its old eager pace, while the number of miles to be travelled grew speedily less and less.
Edgar had watched the little tussle without offering to interfere. It was easy to see that the girl was not in difficulties, or he would have come to her assistance at once. As it was, the incident was interesting, revealing as it did the force of character which could influence by persuasion, when no amount of scolding or whip could possibly have been so effectual. But he was very silent afterwards, and Bertha, supposing him to be absorbed in thoughts about his own affairs, was very careful not to disturb him by any attempt at conversation, and so she was considerably surprised when he asked an abrupt question about a matter which concerned herself.
“How will Mrs. Ellis and her children be supported, now that her husband is dead?”
“We shall manage somehow,” said Bertha rather vaguely, for she could not tell this man, who was almost a stranger, that she deemed it her duty to be breadwinner for the family as far as she could.
“That means, I suppose, that you intend to work yourself to a skeleton in order to provide for them,” he said, with that curious directness which characterized him.
Bertha coloured, and replied with a nervous laugh: “And if I do, it will be no more than paying back an old debt which my sisters and I owe to Mrs. Ellis, who gave up a good position to come and take care of us when our mother died, and one good turn deserves another, you know.”