Hawtrey made a little sign of expostulation. “You really mustn’t worry me about these matters, Aggy. A good many of us are in the storekeepers’ or mortgage-jobbers’ hands, and there’s no doubt that if I have another good year at the Range I shall clear off the debt.”
Agatha turned her face away from him for a moment or two. The thing that Gregory had done laid a heavy obligation on her, and she remembered that she had only found fault with him! Even then, stirred as she was, she was conscious that all the tenderness that she had once felt for him had vanished. The duty, however, remained, and with a little effort she turned to him again.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “I’m so sorry.”
Hawtrey smiled. “I really don’t think I deserve a very great deal of pity. As I have said, I’ll probably come out all right next year if I can only keep expenses down.”
Then Agatha remembered the task that she had in hand. It was a very inauspicious moment to set about it, but that could not be helped, and even for Gregory’s own sake she felt that she must win him over.
“There is one way, Gregory, in which I don’t think it ought to be done,” she said. “You assumed Mr. Wyllard’s obligations when you took the farm, and I think you should keep the two Morans.”
Hawtrey started. “Ah!” he replied. “Mrs. Hastings has been setting you on; I partly expected it.”
“She told me,” Agatha admitted. “Unless you will look at the thing as I do, I could almost wish she hadn’t. The thought of that man’s wife shut up in the woods all winter only to find that what she has had to bear has all been thrown away troubles me. Now Wyllard promised to keep those men on, didn’t he?”
“There was no regular engagement so far as I can make out.”
“Still, Moran seems to have understood that he was to be kept on.”