Grace was pleased and showed it. It is gratifying to feel that anybody has complete confidence in one, and the possession of a common secret of some importance is not infrequently a bond between the two who share it. Ingleby realized this and felt with a curious gratification that the girl recognized it as clearly as he did. Still, she had said nothing that could lead him to believe so.
"Then you no doubt know where he went?" she asked.
Grace smiled. "That means you helped him to get away. Are you wise in admitting that you were an accessory? Captain Esmond is a friend of ours."
Ingleby made her a little whimsical inclination, though there was a look in his eyes which was not quite in keeping with it.
"I am," he said, "quite safe in your hands."
It was a fortunate answer, and worth the more because he was not usually a very tactful person, as the girl was aware. She was afflicted by a craving for influence, and it was not the adulation of men she wanted, but an insight into their thoughts and purposes, and the privilege of controlling them. Thus Ingleby, who did not know it, could not have done more wisely than he did in admitting that he had an unquestioning confidence in her. He was, as she had discovered some time ago, in spite of his simplicity, a man capable of bold conceptions and resolute execution, the type of man, in fact, that usually came to the front in Western Canada. She had the intelligence to realize and weigh all this, and yet there was a strain of passion in her which he had awakened.
"I almost think you are," she said. "How is the new claim progressing?"
"Reasonably well. In fact, although Sewell is apparently getting rich on the one I threw away, I can't complain. What he makes will, at least, be spent on what he thinks is doing good, while I want mine for my own selfish purposes."
"They are necessarily selfish?"