"I endeavored to impress the views I have laid before you on Sergeant Williamson," he explained. "The matter, of course, does not rest with him, but he has come over to make inquiries, and what he has to say will be listened to. I also pointed out to him that one would expect the police case to break down if the man who had instituted it was either absent or reluctant to press it." He stopped a moment and looked round with a confidential air. "You have heard that Brand, of Winnipeg, has failed disastrously? There are reasons for believing that Nevis is involved in his fall; in any case, his office is closed, and it is known that he left the settlement, presumably for Winnipeg, by the last Montreal express."
There was only satisfaction in the faces of those who heard him. Then Mrs. Farquhar broke the silence.
"I wonder whether you could add anything to the last piece of information?"
"Well," smiled Parsons, "prediction is generally dangerous, and in my case it would be unprofessional, but I may confess that from one or two things I gathered I shouldn't be greatly astonished if Nevis failed to come back again."
Thorne laughed outright.
"After that," he said, "we'll take the thing for granted, and I haven't the least hesitation in declaring that it's a great relief to hear it."
Then the group broke up, and Alison strolled out with Thorne across the prairie. A half-moon hung above its eastern rim, and the great sweep of grass ran back into the dim distance faintly touched with the pale silvery light. It fell upon the girl's face when at length she stopped and stood looking about her with the man's hand on her shoulder. A long rise of ground, so slight as to be almost imperceptible, had cut off the lights of the house, and they stood alone in the empty waste surrounded by a deep stillness.
"It seems such a little while since I first saw the prairie, and I shrank from it then," she said. "It looked so bare and grim and utterly forbidding."
"And now?" Thorne prompted her.
Alison laughed, a little, happy laugh.