And as the stories went on, and the boss ran back over the years and told the tales of his first days there, when the country was rank wild and there wasn’t a fence on or near it, the thought kept haunting Ess—“And now what if he loses it?”
And then one night the boss came back from Thunder Ridge and told her quietly and simply that he was at the end of the string—he had given orders for the sheep to be brought down, as many as could be rounded up and were fit to travel in, and killed to boil down for tallow.
Ess could have wept for very pity.
“I brought you a letter,” said the boss, and handed it to her. She took it mechanically and glanced at the strange writing, and when the boss left her she tore it open and looked first at the signature. It was signed “Ned.”
With a little gesture of impatience—she hated the thought of receiving or having to write anything in the way of a love-letter, she told herself, although, if she had analysed the feeling, she would have known it was love-letters from or to Ned that she disliked the thought of—she turned back and read the letter through.
Her amazement grew as she read—grew and changed swiftly to indignation, and then to hot anger.
“My Dear Ess,” the letter said, “I was sorry to find you had gone when we returned here, especially as I had something of importance to say to you. I had meant to wait till you returned here or till I could see you, but I feel that it is a thing I ought not to delay letting you know my views of, as possibly your knowing them, and how emphatic they are, may check the mischief. If you will look at the enclosed note, you will understand what I refer to. No matter how it came into my possession—it is enough that it did so, and that it shows me clearly that you have been led, cheated into it perhaps by a misguided sense of pity, to meeting secretly the man I told you I wished you to have nothing whatever to do with. I am not concluding that you meant any harm by these meetings, but whether harm would come of them or not I do not care—I wish them to stop for ever. My own feelings to you have in no way changed, but——”
Ess ceased to read, with an angry exclamation. “What does he mean? What note——” She looked in the envelope she still held, and plucked a twisted scrap of paper from it.
On the outside fold was clearly written “Steve Knight,” and inside was a scribbled pencil note—“Come over again to-night. Sorry I was rude last night, but remember our compact.—E.L.”
She recognised the writing and initials instantly. They were her own.