"To encourage you?"
"Yes," Wyllard assented gravely; "I think that expresses it. When I camped in the bush of the Pacific slope we were either out on the gold trail—and we generally came back ragged and unsuccessful after spending several months' wages which we could badly spare—or I was going from one wooden town to another without a dollar in my pocket and wondering, how I was to obtain one when I got there. For a time it wasn't much more cheerful on the prairie: twice in succession the harvest failed. Perhaps Lance Radcliffe felt as I did."
The girl cut him short. "Why didn't you mention the photograph at once?"
Wyllard smiled at her. "Oh," he said, "I didn't want to be precipitate—your folks don't seem to like that; I've met them out West. I think"—and he seemed to consider—"I wanted to make sure you wouldn't be repelled by what might look like Colonial brusquerie. You see, you have been over snow-barred divides and through great shadowy forests with me. We've camped among the boulders by lonely lakes, and gone down frothing rapids. I felt—I can't tell you why—that I was bound to meet you some day."
It was, perhaps, a trifle startling, but the girl now showed neither astonishment nor resentment. She felt curiously certain that this stranger was not posing or speaking for effect. It did not occur to him that he might have gone too far, and for a space he leaned against the gate, saying nothing, while she looked at him with what he thought of as her gracious English calm.
Pale sunshine fell upon them, though the larches beside the road were rustling beneath a little cold wind, and the song of the river came up brokenly out of the valley. An odour of fresh grass floated about them, and the dry, cold smell of the English spring was in the air. Across the valley dim ghosts of hills lighted by evanescent gleams rose out of the east wind greyness with shadowy grandeur.
Then Wyllard seemed to rouse himself. "I wonder if I ought to write Major Radcliffe and tell him what my object is before I call?" he said. "It would make the thing a little easier."
The girl rose. "Yes," she assented, "that would, perhaps, be wiser." Then she glanced at the photograph which was still in her hand. "It has served its purpose. I scarcely think it would be of any great interest to Major Radcliffe."
She saw his face change as she made it evident that she did not mean to give the portrait back to him; but there was, at least, one excellent reason why she would not have her picture in a strange man's hands.
"Thank you," she said, "for the story. I am glad we have met; but I'm afraid I have already kept my friends waiting for me."