Nairn followed Jessie’s retreating figure with distrustful eyes. “Weel,” he said, “I’m thinking yon besom may have had a hand in the thing.”
Then he turned, and they went in.
A few minutes later, Jessie, standing where the light of a big lamp streamed down upon her through the boughs of a leafless maple, bade Vane farewell at her brother’s gate.
“If my good wishes can bring you success, it will most certainly be yours,” she said; and there was something in her voice which faintly stirred the man, who was feeling very sore.
“Thank you,” he said, and she did not immediately withdraw the hand she had given him. He was grateful to her, and thought she looked unusually pretty with the sympathy shining in her eyes.
“You will not forget to wait at Nanaimo and Comox?” she went on.
“No,” said Vane. “If you recall me, I’ll come back at once; if not, I’ll go on with a lighter heart, knowing that I can safely stay away.”
Jessie said nothing further, and he moved on. She felt that she had scored, and she knew when to stop. The man had given her his full confidence.
[CHAPTER XXV—THE INTERCEPTED LETTER.]
The wind was fresh from the north-west when Vane drove the sloop out through the Narrows in the early dawn and saw a dim stretch of white-flecked sea in front of him. Landlocked as they are by Vancouver Island, the long roll of the Pacific cannot enter those waters; but they are now and then lashed into short, tumbling seas, sufficient to make their passage difficult for a craft no larger than the sloop. Carroll frowned when a comber struck the weather bow and a shower of stinging spray whipped his face.