"You should never have taken him into your office," she protested reproachfully. "He was sure to be reminded of Dosia's story there."
"I didn't foresee that, and he was beginning to gossip with the workmen. I knew it wouldn't be long before he would get the story of the happenings out of the men—with all the garnishings."
"You must find a way to stop him," she insisted. "If you could only know what terrible consequences are wrapped up in it!"
He waited until a stone block, dangling in the clutch of the derrick-fall above its appointed resting-place on the growing wall of masonry, had been lowered into the cement bed prepared for it before he said, soberly: "That is the trouble—I don't know. And, short of quarrelling outright with Wingfield, I don't think of any effective way of muzzling him."
"No; you mustn't do that. There is misery enough and enmity enough, without making any more. I'll try to keep him away."
"You will fail," he prophesied, with conviction. "Mr. Wingfield calls himself a builder of plots; but I can assure you from this one day's observation of him that he would much rather unravel a plot than build one."
She was silent while the workmen were swinging another great stone out over the canyon chasm. The shadow of the huge derrick-boom swept around and across them, and she shuddered as if the intangible thing had been an icy finger to touch her.
"You must help me," she pleaded. "I cannot see the way a single step ahead."
"And I am in still deeper darkness," he reminded her gently. "You forget that I do not know what threatens you, or how it threatens."
"I can't tell you; I can't tell any one," she said; and he made sure there was a sob at the catching of her breath.