“She runs the concern. She has certainly a father, but you’ll understand things more clearly when you see him. He’s away in Victoria, which is partly why Mrs. Custer from the settlement is now in yonder room. Her husband is at present building a trestle on the Dunsmore track. I come up here for only an hour every day.”
Nasmyth afterwards discovered that this implied a journey of three or four miles either way over a very indifferent trail, but at the moment he was thinking chiefly of Miss Waynefleet, who had given him shelter.
“You practise at the settlement?” he asked.
“Yes,” said his companion dryly, “chopping big trees. I’ve a ranch there. Still, I don’t know that you could exactly call it practising. By this time, I’ve acquired a certain proficiency in the thing.”
Nasmyth fancied that he must have gone to sleep soon after this, for when he opened his eyes again there was no sign of the doctor, and a girl was quietly moving about the room. She sat down, when she saw that he 26 was awake, and looked at him with a little smile, and it was only natural that Nasmyth should also look at her. It struck him once more that she had wonderful hair. In the lamp-light, it seemed to glow with curious red-gold gleams. She had also quiet brown eyes, and a face that was a trifle darkened by sun and wind. He guessed that she was tall. She looked so as she moved about the room with a supple gracefulness that had a suggestion of strength in it. That was all he noticed in detail, for he was chiefly conscious of the air of quiet composure that characterized her. He was a trifle fanciful that night, and, while he looked her, he felt as he had sometimes felt when he stood at sunset in the silence of the shadowy Bush, or gazed down into the depths of some still river pool. Only her gleaming red-gold hair and her full red lips slightly counteracted this impression. There was in them at least a hint of fire and passion.
“You are much better,” she said, and her softly modulated voice fell pleasantly on his ears. He contrived to raise himself a trifle.
“I believe I am,” he answered, “In any case, I know I owe it to you that I’m alive at all. Still”––and he hesitated––“I can’t help feeling a bit uncomfortable. You see, I have really no claim on you.”
Laura Waynefleet laughed. “Did you expect me to leave you out in the snow?”
“If you had, I couldn’t have complained. There wasn’t the least obligation upon you to look after a penniless stranger.”
“Ah!” said the girl, with a little smile which was curiously expressive, “after all, many of us are in one sense strangers in the Bush.”