By degrees, however, her innate resolution rose against that decision, and she remembered that it was not, in point of time, at least a very long journey to British Columbia. There was nothing to prevent her setting out when it pleased her; and then it occurred to her that the difficulties would be plentiful at the other end. What explanation would she make to her sister, or the man, if—and the doubt was horrible—he was, indeed, still capable of receiving it? He had never in direct speech offered her his love, and she had not even the excuse of the girl who had given Reggie Ferris up for throwing herself at his feet. She was not even sure that she could have done it in that case, for her pride was strong, and once more she felt the hopelessness of the irrevocable. She had shown herself hard and unforgiving, and now she realized that the man she loved—and it was borne in upon her, that in spite of his offences she loved him well—was as far beyond her reach as though he had already slipped away from her into the other world at whose shadowy portals he lay in the Vancouver hospital.
There had been a time, indeed the occasion had twice presented itself, when she could have relented gracefully, but she could no longer hope that it would ever happen again, and it only remained for her to face the result of her folly, and bear herself befittingly. It would, she realized, cost her a bitter effort, but the effort must be made, and she rose with a tense white face and turned towards the house. Hetty, as it happened, met her in the hall, and looked at her curiously.
"There are, as you may remember, two or three people coming in to dinner," she said. "I have no doubt I could think out some excuse if you would sooner not come down."
"Why do you think that would please me?" said Barbara, quietly.
"Well," said Hetty, a trifle drily, "I fancied you would sooner have stayed away. Your appearance rather suggested it."
Barbara smiled in a listless fashion. "I'm afraid I can't help that," she said. "Your friends, however, will presumably not be here for an hour or two yet."
Hetty made no further suggestions, and Barbara moved on slowly towards the stairway. She came of a stock that had grappled with frost and flood in the wild ranges of the mountain province, and courage and steadfastness were born in her, but she knew there was peril in the slightest concession to her gentler nature she might make just then. What she bore in the meanwhile she told nobody, but when the sonorous notes of a gong rolled through the building she came down the great stairway only a trifle colder in face than usual, and immaculately dressed.
XXXI.
BROOKE IS FORGIVEN.
It was a pleasant morning, and Brooke lay luxuriating in the sunlight by an open window of the Vancouver hospital. His face was blanched and haggard, and his clothes hung loosely about his limbs, but there was a brightness in his eyes, and he was sensible that at last his strength was coming back to him. Opposite him sat Devine, who had just come in, and was watching him with evident approbation.