Mrs. Nairn smiled. “Alec,” she said, “is reserved by nature, but if ye’re anxious for an answer I might tell ye.”
“Anxious hardly describes it,” Evelyn replied.
“Then we’ll say curious. The fact is, Vane made a bargain with a sick prospector, in which he undertook to locate some timber the man had discovered away among the mountains. He was to pay the other a share of its value when he got his Government licence.”
“Is the timber very valuable?”
“No,” broke in Nairn. “One might make a fair business profit out of pulping it, though the thing’s far from certain.”
“Then why is Mr. Vane so keen on finding it?”
The question gave Mrs. Nairn a lead, but she decided to say no more than was necessary. “The prospector died, but that bound the bargain tighter, in Vane’s opinion. The man died without a dollar, leaving a daughter worn-out and ill with nursing him. According to the arrangement, his share will go to the girl.”
“Then,” said Evelyn, “Mr. Vane is really undertaking the search in order to keep his promise to a man who is dead; and he will not even postpone it, because if he did so this penniless girl might, perhaps, lose her share? Isn’t that rather fine of him?”
“On the whole, ye understand the position,” Nairn agreed, “If ye desire my view of the matter, I would merely say that yon’s the kind of man he is.”
Evelyn made no further comment, though the last common phrase struck her as a most eloquent tribute. She had heard Vane confess that he did not want to go north at present, and she now understood that to do so might jeopardise his interests in the mine; but he was undoubtedly going. He meant to keep his promise—this was what one would expect of him.