Brooke, who glanced curiously at the single seal, laid down the packet, and Mrs. Devine smiled. "I feel ever so much easier now that is off my mind," she said. "Still, I shall expect you to sleep with the papers under your pillow."
She went out, and left him and Barbara alone again, but Brooke knew that the struggle was over and the question decided once for all. The girl's trust in him had not only made those papers inviolable so far as he was concerned, but had rendered a breach with Saxton unavoidable. He knew now that he could never do what the latter had expected from him.
"You appeared almost unwilling to take the responsibility," said the girl.
Brooke smiled curiously. "I really think that was the case," he said. "In fact, your confidence almost hurt me. One feels the obligation of proving it warranted—in every respect—you see. That is partly why I shall go away the day we swing the first load of props across the cañon."
Barbara felt a trace of disconcertion. "But my brother-in-law may ask you to do something else for him."
"I scarcely think that is likely," said Brooke, with a little dry smile.
Barbara said nothing further, and when she left him Brooke was once more sensible of a curious relief. It would, he knew, cost him a strenuous effort to go away, but he would, at least, be freed from the horrible necessity of duping the girl, who, it seemed, believed in him. When Jimmy arrived that evening to accompany him back to his tent at the cañon, and expressed his satisfaction at the fact that he did not appear very much the worse, he smiled a trifle drily.
"That," he said, "is a little astonishing. I am, I think, warranted in believing myself six thousand dollars worse off than when I went away."
Jimmy stared at him incredulously.
"Well," he said, "I never figured you had that many, and I don't quite see how you could have let them get away from you here. Something you didn't expect has happened?"