"I didn't intend to mention it—you'll keep it to yourself. I'd got into a bit of a mess shortly before I was hurt at the ravine, and Harding paid up the money-lender I'd gone to in Winnipeg. What's more, he beat the fellow down, so that I only had to account for what I actually got."
"Ah!" said Beatrice. "Now I understand your restlessness when you were ill. But on what terms did Harding lend you the money?"
"He made only one condition: that I wouldn't take another bet until I was free again. Of course, I shall insist on paying him interest. Harding's a remarkably fine fellow, and I mean to stick to him."
Beatrice felt troubled by the keenness of her gratitude. She was fond of Lance, but she knew his weaknesses, and she saw that Harding had rendered him a great service. Moreover, she thought Lance's admiration for the man was justified. He had turned the lad out of a path that led through quagmires and set him on firm ground; his influence would be for good.
Lance gave her the news of the settlement; and when the lights of the Grange shone out through the creeping dark, everything else was forgotten in the pleasure of reaching home.
Three weeks later, when the thrasher had gone and the stooked sheaves had vanished, leaving only the huge straw wheat bins towering above the stubble, Harding drove to the Grange one evening with Hester and Devine. He had not entered the house for several months, and felt diffident about the visit, but Lance had urged him to come. The Allenwood Harvest Home was, he said, a function which everybody in the neighborhood was expected to attend. Besides, they had been fortunate in getting a clergyman from a distant settlement to take the service, and he was worth hearing.
The days were shortening rapidly, and when the party reached the Grange a row of lamps were burning in the hall. The moose heads had gone, and in their place sheaves of grain adorned the walls. Between the sheaves were festoons of stiff wheat ears and feathery heads of oats, warm bronze interspersed with cadmium and silver, and garlands of dry, blue flax. All had been arranged with taste, and the new flag that draped the reading desk made a blotch of vivid crimson among the harmonies of softer color. A tall, silver lamp behind the desk threw its light on the ruddy folds, and Harding, glancing at it, felt a certain admiring thrill. That symbol was honored at Allenwood, standing as it did for great traditions, and peace and order and justice had followed it to the West, but it was not for nothing that the new country had quartered the Beaver of Industry on its crimson field.
He was shown a place with his companions, and Mowbray gave him a nod of recognition. Harding felt that the Colonel had proclaimed a truce while they met for thanksgiving. Lance and several others smiled at him as he quietly looked about in search of Beatrice, whom he could not see. The hall was filled with handsome, brown-skinned men, and there was something fine, but in a sense exotic, in their bearing and in the faces of the women.
All rose respectfully when a young man in white surplice and colored hood came in. He had a strong, clean-cut face, and carried himself well, but his manner was quietly reverent. Harding felt that these people from the Old Country knew how things should be done, and he had a curious sense of kinship with them. It was as if he were taking part in something familiar; though this was the first Anglican service he had attended.
A man at the rather battered grand piano struck a few chords, and Harding saw Beatrice when the opening hymn began. She stood a few yards away, but her voice reached him plainly. It was, he recognized, singularly sweet and clear, though he knew nothing of the training and study that had developed it. He could pick it out from the others, and as he listened his lips quivered and a mistiness gathered in his eyes. Harding was not, as a rule, particularly imaginative or sensitive, but he was capable at times of a strange emotional stirring.