“Then you would have to go away?” she asked.
A flush crept into Nasmyth’s face. She was a woman of his own caste, and probably without intending it, she had shown him in many ways that she was not averse from him. He felt his heart beat fast when for a moment she met his gaze.
“The trouble is that if I do not go I shall never have the right to come back again,” he told her.
“Then,” replied the girl very softly, “you wish to come back?”
“That is why I am going. There are those spurs to win. I have to make my mark.”
“But it is sometimes a little difficult to make one’s mark, isn’t it? You may be ever so long, and it must be a little hazardous in that horrible cañon.”
“If it gives me the right to come back, I think it will be very well worth while.”
“But suppose you don’t succeed, after all?”
“That,” admitted Nasmyth, “is a thing I daren’t contemplate, because, if it happened, it is scarcely likely that 207 any of my friends at Bonavista would ever be troubled with me again.”
Violet looked away from him. “Ah,” she said, “don’t you think that would be a little hard on them? Is it very easy for you to go away?”