It was a few minutes later when the man came up the path and handed her a packet. Among the letters she spread out there was one for Barbara, whose face grew suddenly intent as she opened it. It was from Mrs. Devine, and the thin paper crackled under her tightening fingers as she read:—
"I have been alone since I last wrote you, as Grant had to go up to the Dayspring suddenly and has not come back. There was, I understand, a big flood in the valley above the mine, and Brooke, it seems, was very seriously hurt when endeavoring to protect the workings. I don't understand exactly how it happened, though I surmise from Grant's letters that he did a very daring thing. He is now in the Vancouver hospital, for although Grant wished him brought here, the surgeon considered him far too ill to move. His injuries, I understand, are not very serious in themselves, but it appears that the man was badly worn out and run down when he sustained them, and his condition, I am sorry to say, is just now very precarious."
The rest of the letter concerned the doings of Barbara's friends in Vancouver, but the girl read no more of it, and sat still, a trifle white in the face, with her hands trembling, until Hetty turned to her.
"You don't look well," she said. "I hope nothing has happened to your sister or Mr. Devine?"
"No," said Barbara, quietly, though there was a faint tremor in her voice. "They are apparently in as good health as usual."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Hetty, with an air of relief. "There is, of course, nobody else, or I should have known it, though you really seem a trifle paler than you generally do. Shall we go in and look through these patterns? I have been writing up about some dress material, and they've sent cuttings. Still, I don't suppose you will want anything new for Mrs. Cruttenden's?"
"No," said Barbara, in a voice that was almost too even now, and not in keeping with the tension in her face. "In fact, I'm not going at all."
Hetty glanced at her sharply, and then made a little gesture of comprehension.
"Very well!" she said. "Whenever you feel it would be any consolation you can tell me, but in the meanwhile I have no doubt that you can get on without my company."
She moved away, and Barbara, who was glad to be alone, sat still, for she wished to set her thoughts in order. This was apparently the climax all that had passed that afternoon had led up to, but she was just then chiefly conscious of an overwhelming distress that precluded any systematic consideration of its causes. The man whom she had roused from his lethargy at the Quatomac ranch was now, she gathered, dying in the Vancouver hospital, but not before he had blotted out his offences by slow endurance and unwearying effort in the face of flood and frost. She would have admitted this to him willingly now, but the opportunity was, it seemed, not to be afforded her, and the bitter words with which she had lashed him could never be withdrawn. She who had shown no mercy, and would not afford him what Major Hume had termed another chance, must, it seemed, long for it in vain herself.