"Oh, no," said Mrs. Broadwood. "Still, I was sorry for Beatrice and it made me curious."
She changed the subject and after a time took up a book as an excuse for silence. She wanted to think, because she now felt sure that Gerald's financial difficulties accounted for the pressure that was being put upon Beatrice. The girl was being forced to marry Brand because he would supply the money to save her brother from disgrace. Mrs. Broadwood felt that it must be disgrace and not an ordinary debt. There would, however, be no great difficulty if he had given some one a note, for the man who endorsed it must have known that he might be called upon to pay. But suppose he had not heard about the transaction at all? Mrs. Broadwood dropped her book, for she saw that she had guessed the riddle. Gerald had not asked the man to guarantee him; he had forged his name. Taking this for granted made everything plain.
Then she began to wonder whose name Gerald had forged. It could not be his father's, for Mowbray was known to be far from rich. The only man with much money at Allenwood was Brand, but Mrs. Broadwood thought it could not be Brand, because she knew Mowbray's pride and believed that in spite of his anxiety to keep the matter quiet he would not force his daughter to marry a man his son had robbed. Admitting this, she must look for some one else. Then it dawned upon her that the man was Harding.
"What did you say?" Broadwood asked, looking up from his paper.
"I was thinking," his wife replied. "S'pose I must have thought aloud. Anyway it wouldn't interest you. How's wheat going?"
"Down," said Broadwood, and there was silence again.
Mrs. Broadwood saw what she could do. She admitted that she might make a deplorable mess of things if she were mistaken, but the need was serious enough to justify some risk. She had courage and she was fond of Beatrice.
The next afternoon she drove across the prairie to the spot where she thought Harding was at work. She found him busy with his engine at the end of a wide belt of plowing which the land packer had rolled down hard and smooth.
"Craig!" she called, pulling up her horse. "I want you a minute."
He came to the step of the buck-board, dressed in greasy overalls, with an oil smear on his hand, but she felt that he was to be trusted as she gave him an approving glance. She liked his level look and his steady eyes; there was force in his quiet face. He was the type of man she admired: swift in action, free from what she called meanness, and determined. Indeed, she felt inclined to hesitate as she thought of his resolute character. It would be easy to set him in motion, but once that was done he could not be stopped, and there might be startling developments. It was rather like firing the train to a mine; and there was a disturbing possibility that she might, after all, be wrong in her surmises.