This mention of the violins was a little ruse on Tom's part in order to see how Martin would take it. But the latter made no comment. He sat very still, looking straight before him, and Tom alone noted the expression upon his face, from which he surmised that the quiet man was fighting a fierce, stubborn battle.
"Ye'll play, lassie, won't ye?" Tom asked, turning to Nance. "I know that the boys would like it great, an' the parson—well, he'll about stand on his head."
"I should dearly love to play," Nance laughingly replied, "that is, if daddy will let me. But perhaps I might break down in the presence of so many men. I am sure to get nervous, and will hardly know what I am doing."
"Don't let that trouble ye, Miss," Tom hastened to reply. "Ye have the nurse with ye. Maybe she sings, an' if she does so much the better. Then, if everything goes off well at the first service, the boys 'ill be sure to flock back ag'in, an' the saloon will be a heavy loser."
Martin sat for a long time outside the door of his house after the two prospectors had gone home. Nance, tired out, was asleep. Sounds from the mining camp fell upon his ears. He could hear the loud talking and laughing, mingled occasionally with the voices of women. Lights twinkled here and there throughout the town, while the saloon down by the lake was ablaze with numerous candles. A hilarious time was being held there, he well knew. He compared the scene now with what it was before the miners came. Then peace and quiet dwelt over the entire place instead of the discords which were making the night hideous.
One small light, trailing out into the darkness, held Martin's attention. It came from the hospital, and he thought of the woman there who was keeping watch over the patient. This was her first night at Quaska, and he realised how lonely she must be. He had no doubt now that it was Beryl. The description which Nance had given, and what she had told him, made him certain that it could be no one else. He marvelled how strangely it had come to pass that she of all women should come to Quaska. He thought, too, how differently their lives would have been but for his own terrible fall. No doubt they would be living in their own happy home, respected by all. But oh, how opposite the reality. There was Beryl, lonely in that building over yonder, and he himself a dejected outcast, with the future holding not a ray of hope, and the past only gall and wormwood. What would Beryl think and do, he wondered, if she knew that he was so near, with only the river flowing between? But she must never know, so he told himself. Then a great longing came upon him to see her, to look upon her face once more. It would be so easy, he mused, to slip over the river, and peer in through the window from which the light was streaming. He banished this idea, however, as unmanly, and so contented himself with thinking about Beryl as he knew her in the sweet old days before they were separated.
And so on this night while Martin sat and dreamed, a lonely, tear-stained-faced woman stood at the little window of her room and gazed out into the night, thinking of him, who was so near, and yet so far away. And between these two flowed the silent river, dark and swift on its way to the deep lake below.