Mrs. Hastings was thoughtful for a moment. “In that case he will in all probability do it; but I don’t think you need feel diffident about meeting him, especially as you can’t help it. He’ll wait and say nothing until he considers it advisable.”
She changed the subject, and talked about other matters until they reached the homestead.
As the weeks went by Agatha found that what Mrs. Hastings had told her was warranted. Wyllard drove over every now and then, but she was reassured by his attitude. He greeted her with the quiet cordiality which had hitherto characterized him, and it went a long way towards allaying the embarrassment of which she was conscious at first. By and by, however, she felt no embarrassment at all, in spite of the disturbing possibility that he might at some future time once more adopt the role of lover.
In the meanwhile, she realized that despite the efforts she made to think of him tenderly she was drifting further apart from Gregory. She had two other offers of marriage before the wheat had shot up a hand’s breadth above the rich black loam. This was a matter of regret to her, and, though Mrs. Hastings assured her that the “boys” would get over it, she was rather shocked to hear that one of them had shortly afterwards involved himself in difficulties by creating a disturbance in Winnipeg.
The wheat, however, was growing tall when, at Mrs. Hastings’ request, Agatha drove over to Willow Range. Wyllard was out when they reached the homestead, and leaving Mrs. Hastings and his housekeeper together, the girl wandered out into the open air. She went through the birch bluff and towards the slough, which had almost dried up now, and it was with a curious stirring of confused feelings that she remembered what Wyllard had said to her there. Through all her thoughts ran a regret that she had not met him four years earlier.
Regrets, however, were useless, and in order to get rid of them she walked more briskly up a low rise of ground where the grass was already turning white again, over the crest of the hill, and down the side to another hollow. The prairie rolled in wide undulations as the sea does when the swell of a distant gale underruns a glassy calm. Agatha had grown fond of the prairie. Its clear skies and fresh breezes had brought the color to her cheeks and given her composure, though there were times when the knowledge that she was no nearer a decision in regard to Gregory weighed heavily upon her. She had seen very little of him and he had not been effusive then. She could not guess what his feelings might be, but it had been a relief to her when he had ridden away from the home of the Hastingses. For a while after she saw him he faded to an unsubstantial, shadowy figure in the back of her mind.
On this afternoon when Agatha tried to put out of her mind the disturbing reflections that came to her as she walked, the prairie stretched away before her, gleaming in the sunlight under a vast sweep of cloudless blue. She was half-way down the long slope when a clash and tinkle reached her, and she noticed that a cloud of dust hung about the hollow where there had been another slough, which evidently had dried up weeks before. As men and horses were moving amid the dust she supposed that they were cutting prairie hay, which grows longer in such places than it does upon the levels. She went on another half-mile, and then sat down, for she had walked farther than she had intended to go. She could now see the men more clearly, and, though it was fiercely hot, they were evidently working at high pressure. Their blue duck clothing and bare brown arms appeared among the white and ocher tinting of the grass that seemed charged with brightness, and the sounds of their activity came up to her. She could distinguish the clashing tinkle of the mowers, the crackle of the harsh stems, and the rattle of wagon wheels.
A great mound of gleaming grass, overhanging two half-seen horses, moved out of the slough, and she watched it draw nearer until she made out Wyllard sitting in the front of it. She sat still until he pulled the team up close beside her and looked down with a smile.
“It’s almost two miles to the homestead. If you could manage to climb up I could make you a comfortable place,” he said.
Agatha held her hands up with one foot upon a spoke of the wheels as Wyllard leaned down, and next moment she was lifted upwards. She felt his supporting hand upon her waist. Then she found herself standing upon a narrow ledge, clutching at the hay while he tore out several big armfuls of it and flung it back upon the top of the load.