"Ah!" said Lucy. "I was sorry when you did that, because I knew what it meant"
Lawrence looked at her deprecatingly. "I don't like you to be prejudiced, dear, even on my account. I can do nothing that might injure Walters now and can't treat him with suspicion; but he's going soon and, if it's any comfort, I won't leave the hotel grounds for the next day or two. Anyhow I've rather overdone things lately."
"Thank you for the promise," Lucy said, and was glad when her mother joined them, for she felt baffled and wanted to think.
She hated Walters with a half-instinctive hatred that reflection showed her was justified; but beyond the concession he had made Lawrence would not be moved. On the surface, so to speak, he was logical and she was not. She was sure Walters had plotted to leave him on the couloir, although she admitted that he had meant to save his life when he turned dizzy upon the trunk. It was possible that he had yielded to sudden generous emotion, but she did not accept the explanation. The fellow was cold-blooded and calculating; she thought he had deliberately let his opportunity pass, because, after this, nobody would believe him guilty if he found another. But he must not find an opportunity, and it was a keen relief to know that Foster would soon arrive. She had not told Lawrence yet; it might be better to let Foster make an excuse for his visit.
When it began to get dark, she stood near the glass front of the veranda and glanced at her watch. She could see for some distance down the valley and knew that the smoke of a locomotive would spread in a dark cloud across the tops of the pines. The train was late, but there was no smoke yet. It was a long climb from sea-level at Vancouver Inlet and in winter the line was sometimes blocked. There was no obvious ground for alarm, but somehow she was worse afraid of Walters than before.
The massed pines gradually faded to a formless blur on the cold blue-gray slopes of snow. There was no sound from the valley by the roar of the river, and by and by a servant turned on the lamps. Lucy could now see nothing outside and shivered as she looked at her watch. She hoped no accident had delayed the tram.
In the meantime, Lawrence, who was sitting near her mother, had picked up a book, but put it down when Walters came in, and Lucy felt a curious tremor of repugnance as she glanced at him. It was a shrinking she sometimes experienced at the sight of a noxious insect. Yet there was nothing about Walters to excite aversion. He was rather a handsome man, and stood in a careless pose, smiling at the group.
"The trouble about a pleasant time is that it comes to an end, and I'll have to pull out to-morrow," he said. "When are you going to give me the photographs you promised, Lawrence?"
"I'll get them now and you can choose which you like. They're in my room."
"I want one with Miss Stephen in it as well as yourself," Walters replied. "It will be something to remind me of our climbs."