As Travers watched her speeding toward him with glowing cheeks and eyes, a lovely picture of blossoming young womanhood between the wintry ground and summer sky, something leaped to life in the Dandy's breast that made it a hard task for him to greet her with the grave impersonal politeness it was his policy to assume, and determined him more than ever to cut out "that blasted Scarlett."
After formal salutations had been exchanged, he remarked: "I think I saw you speaking with some one in uniform, Miss Durant. I trust it was not a member of the Mounted Police?"
"It was Sergeant Scarlett."
"Good heavens! Scarlett, of all men! May I hope you did not mention our appointment to him?"
"My appointments are my own affair, Mr. Travers. Please let us get to the matter in hand without delay. What is it you have to say to me?"
"I am more anxious than you possibly can be for haste, since to you the matter is but one of temporary inconvenience, while to carry it through I am risking my very life. But before we go any further I must have your sacred promise that what I say is in inviolable confidence."
"Confidences between you and me, Mr. Travers! Aren't you making too much of what is probably some ordinary business matter; taking rather an undue advantage of my complaisance in granting you this interview?"
"Miss Durant, you wrong me. I tell you that in seeking you I have nothing to gain, everything to lose; life, honor, everything! I am running this tremendous risk—not, as you think, because you are a woman, young, rich, beautiful; but because I owe a debt of gratitude, that only life could pay, to your dear father."
"My dear father! You come from him? Then he knows of my arrival! Why isn't he here himself to welcome me?" Evelyn's questions came rushing eagerly.
"Miss Durant, he cannot come. He is a prisoner."