"It's something about Billy," she continued. "Will you tell me what I want to know?"
"If you ought to know, Hazel."
"Well, I should.... I—he—" The tears filled her eyes, and she seemed undecided whether to give them vent or wipe them away and be brave. She wiped them away.
"I left a good home and came here to work just so that I could be near him and help him. I've told him that I'll wait as long as I need to. I didn't want to go to Toronto, because I knew everyone in Mt. Alban would then say I tagged Billy. I'm willing to wait, but Billy seems so discouraged at times I am often afraid he'll run away or do something rash. Tell me, Evan, is he all right? Does he drink or—anything?"
Evan tried to recall something Bill had said that would cheer the waiting girl, but could not think of anything. He did remember the lectures Watson had delivered on the follies of clerkship; but to Hazel they would only indicate recklessness and dissatisfaction. And, too, Bill did take a drink frequently; in fact, Evan suspected that he made a night of it occasionally to "drown his sorrow."
"Hazel," he said seriously, "Bill is one of the finest fellows I ever worked with. I'm sure he's honest and true. He hates Castle and Castle hates him: that's something to his credit—but it may keep him back in the bank. But he'll never be false to a friend or a girl, I'm sure of that."
The girl in the canoe looked wistfully at Nelson. "Somehow I wish you were working in the same office with him. I always felt as though you were—a solid sort of a chap, Evan."
The last few words were accompanied by a little laugh, to counteract the suspicion of flattery that clung to them. But for that feminine interpretation Evan might not have so fully appreciated her meaning. He got a suggestion from her words: would it not be a good idea to write Bill and tell him of the evening spent with Hazel? It might give the slaving city-teller new vim for the eternity of figures and celibacy before him.
On Sunday Evan did write to Watson. He described Saturday's pleasure excursions with Hazel, dwelling on the enjoyment it gave himself and upon the sincerity with which she spoke of "Billy." Evan meant the letter to appeal. He knew that Bill knew him and would not resent perfect candor, when properly mixed with the right brand of sympathy. He thought, as he wrote, of the peculiar independence of character and cynicism of Watson; the combined traits amounting almost to recklessness. But he could not conceive of Bill's going wrong. He reflected that Hazel must love Bill, in spite of her fear that he was weak, and wondered at the tenderness of woman. Why was she so little considered in this world of business?
The Morton girl's companionship, quite naturally, took Nelson back to Mt. Alban, and Mt. Alban was only a few miles from Hometon and Frankie. He did not consider it likely that Julia Watersea or Lily Allen were still thinking of him; but he sighed when a vision of Frankie, with blue skirt and cheap white waist like Hazel's, rose before him. He wrote her a letter, the first in months, wishing her well, but saying nothing of love. A dollar a day with board wasn't much, truly, to apply against the great debit of matrimony, and why mention love at all if it could not be consummated?