I had hardly spoken before I regretted it. The words were useless and puerile; but my indignation demanded some outlet. In any case, Lane shrugged his shoulders and the other man grinned, while I had clearly spoken more loudly than I intended, for several bystanders applauded, and when I moved away Sergeant Mackay overtook me. "I'm surprised at ye, Rancher Ormesby," he said. "Ye have not shown your usual discretion."
"I would not change it for yours," I answered. "It is evidently insufficient to warn you that there are times when preaching becomes an impertinence."
Mackay only shook his head. He wheeled his horse, and, with two troopers behind him, rode towards the wagon which Lane was mounting. A deep growl of execration went up, and the farewell might have been warmer but for the troopers' presence. As it was, he turned and ironically saluted the sullenly wrathful crowd as the light wagon lurched away across the prairie. Then I was left homeless, and was glad to feel Haldane's touch on my arm. "Light this cigar and jump in. The team are getting impatient, and Lucille will be wondering what has kept us so long," he said.
CHAPTER XIII
AN UNFORTUNATE PROMISE
Haldane could command any man's attention when he chose to exert himself, and, I fancied, made a special effort on my behalf during his homeward journey. As a result of this I almost forgot that I was a homeless and practically ruined man as I listened to his shrewd predictions concerning the future of that region, or occasionally ventured to point out improbabilities in some of them. The depression, however, returned with double force when we came into sight of Bonaventure soon after dusk, and with it a curious reluctance to face the young mistress of the homestead.
Lucille Haldane was my junior by several years. Indeed, on our first meeting I had considered her little more than a girl, but since then a respect for her opinions, and a desire to retain her approval, had been growing upon me. Perhaps it was because her opinions more or less coincided with my own, but this fact would not account for the undeniable thrill of pleasure which had followed her naïve announcement that she believed in me. Hitherto, with one exception, I had figured before her as a successful man, and I positively shrank from appearing as one badly beaten and brought down by his own overconfident folly. I remembered how she once said: "You must not disappoint us."
This seemed wholly absurd, but the worst bitterness I had yet experienced made itself felt when Haldane pulled up his team, and, pointing to a figure on the threshold of his homestead, said: "Lucille must have been getting impatient. She is watching for us."
I allowed him to precede me by as long a space as possible, while I lingered to assist the hired man with a refractory buckle, and then it was with an effort I braced myself for the interview. Haldane had vanished into the house, but the slight, graceful figure still waited upon the threshold, and I wondered, with a strange anxiety, what his daughter would say to me.
The question was promptly answered, for, as I entered the hall, feeling horribly ashamed and with doubtless a very wooden face, Lucille Haldane held out both hands to me. Her manner was half-shy, wholly compassionate, and I stood quite still a while comforted by the touch of the little soft fingers which I held fast within my own. Then she said very simply: "I am so sorry, but you will have better fortune yet."