Agatha was conscious of a shock of dismay.
“We may be back before the winter, but it’s also quite likely that we may be ice-nipped before our work is through, and in that case it would be a year at least before we reach Vancouver,” he went on steadily after a little pause. “In fact, there’s a certain probability that all of us may leave our bones up there. Now, there’s a thing I must ask you. Is it only a passing trouble that stands between you and Gregory? Are you still fond of him?”
Agatha’s heart beat fast. It would have been a relief to assure herself that she was as fond of Gregory as she had been, but she could not do it.
“That is a point on which I cannot answer you,” she declared in a voice that trembled.
“We’ll let it go at that. The fact that Gregory sent me over for you implied a certain obligation. How far events have cleared me of it I don’t know—and you don’t seem willing to tell me. But I believe there is now less cause than there was for me to thrust my own wishes into the background, and, as I start in another week, the situation has forced my hand. I can’t wait as I had meant to do, and it would be a vast relief to know that I had made your future safer than it is before I go. Will you marry me at the settlement the morning I start?”
Half-conscious, as she was, of the unselfishness which had prompted this suggestion, Agatha faced him in hot anger.
“Can you suppose for a moment that I would agree to that?” she asked.
“Wait,” he pleaded. “Try to look at it calmly. First of all, I want you. You know that—though you have never shown me any tenderness, you can’t doubt it—but I can’t stay to win your liking. I must go away. As things stand, your future is uncertain; but as my wife it would, at least, be safe. However badly the man I leave in charge of the Range may manage there would be something saved out of the wreck, and I would like to make that something yours. As I said, I may be away a year, perhaps eighteen months, and I may never come back. If I don’t return the fact that you would bear my name could cause you no great trouble. It would lay no restraint on you in any way.”
Agatha looked him in the eyes, and spoke with quick intensity. “We can’t contemplate your not coming back. It’s unthinkable.”
“Thank you,” said Wyllard, still with the grave quietness she wondered at. “Then I’m not sure that my turning up again would greatly complicate the situation. There would, at least, be one way out of the difficulty. You wouldn’t find your position intolerable if I could make you fond of me.”