"If he did, I never saw him—and I waited for him two nights!"
"Two!" cried Helen. "Then he could not have wanted to come."
"I rather fancy he did not," replied Stane with a bitter laugh.
"You wished to see him very much?" asked the girl quickly. "It was important that you should?"
"I wished to question him upon a matter that was important to me."
"Ah!" said the girl in a tone that was full of significance. Stane looked at her sharply, and then asked a question:
"What are you thinking, Miss Yardely?"
"Oh, I was just thinking that I had guessed one of your wildly possible reasons, Mr. Stane; and to tell the truth, if Mr. Ainley was really anxious to avoid answering your questions, it does not seem to me so inherently improbable as you appear to think."
"What convinces you of that, Miss Yardely?"
"Well," she replied quickly, "you say the Indian told you that it was an order. I ask myself—whose order? There were very few people at Fort Malsun to give orders. I think of them in turn. The factor? You were a stranger to him! My uncle? He never heard of you except in gossip over the dinner-table the night you were deported. Gerald Ainley? He knew you! He had made appointments with you that he twice failed to keep—which, quite evidently, he had no intention of keeping. He had—may I guess?—some strong reason for avoiding you; and he is a man of some authority in the Company and moving to still greater. He would not know the Indians who actually carried you away; but Factor Rodwell would, and factors are only human, and sooner or later Gerald Ainley will be able to considerably influence Mr. Rodwell's future. Therefore—well, Q.E.D.! Do you not agree with me?"