"Oh!" said the girl, "that must have been Lance Radcliffe. I was with him when the scar was made—ever so long ago. But you said his name was Pattinson—and we heard that he was dead."
"I did," said Wyllard gravely. "Still, I wasn't quite sure of it, and he's certainly dead. I buried him."
His companion made a little abrupt movement, and he saw the sudden softening of her eyes. There was, however, only a gentle pity in them, and nothing in her manner suggested the deeper feeling he had half-expected. That was also a relief to him.
"Then," she said, "I am sure that his father would like to meet you. There was some trouble between them—I don't know which was wrong—and Lance went out to Canada, and never wrote. By and bye, Major Radcliffe tried to trace him through a Vancouver banker, and only found that he had died in the hands of a stranger who had done all that was possible for him." She turned to Wyllard with a look which set his heart beating rather faster than usual. "You are that man?"
"Yes," said Wyllard simply, "I did what I could for him. It didn't amount to very much. He was too far gone."
Then at her request he told her the story he had told to Hawtrey, and when he had finished her face was soft again, for it had stirred her curiously.
"But," she said, "he had no claim on you."
Wyllard lifted one hand as if in expostulation. "He was dying in the bush. Wasn't that enough?"
The girl made no answer for a moment or two. She had earned her living for several years, and was, because of it, to some extent acquainted with the grim realities of life. She did not know that while there are certainly hard men in Canada, the small farmers and ranchers of the West—and, perhaps above all, the fearless free lances who build railroads and grapple with giant trees in the forests of the Pacific slope—are, as a rule, distinguished by a splendid charity. With them the sick or worn-out stranger is very seldom turned away. Still, watching her companion covertly, she understood that this man whom she had seen for the first time three days ago had done exactly what she would have expected of him. Then she proceeded to give him the information she supposed he desired.
"I saw a good deal of Lance Radcliffe—when I was younger," she said. "His people still live at Garside Scar, close by Dufton Holme. I presume you will call on them?"