Iredale shook his head. A vivid flash of lightning shot across the open window, and a crash of thunder followed it immediately. The storm was breaking at last.
“I’ll close the window.” Iredale moved across the room to do so. Prudence looked after him. When he returned he sat himself in Alice’s chair, having brought it nearer to the machine. Then followed a long silence while the machine rattled down a seam. 215 The man watched the nimble fingers intently as they guided the material under the needle. The bent head prevented him seeing more than the barest outline of the girl’s cheek, but he seemed content. Now that the moment had arrived for him to speak, he was quite master of himself.
“Prudence,” he began, at last, “I am giving up my ranch. I have been making the necessary arrangements. I have done with money-making.”
“Really.” The girl looked up sharply, then down again at her work. She had encountered the steady gaze of the man’s earnest eyes. “Are you going to––to leave us?” She was conscious of the lameness of her question.
“I don’t quite know. That depends largely upon circumstances. I am certainly about to seek pleasant places, but I cannot tell yet where those pleasant places will be found. Perhaps you will help me.”
“How?” The seam swerved out into a great bow, and Prudence was forced to go back over it.
“Easily enough, if you will.”
The girl did not answer, but busied herself with the manipulation of her machine. Her face had paled, and her heart was thumping in great pulsations. Iredale went on. He had assumed his characteristic composure. What fire burned beneath his calm exterior, it would have needed the discerning eyes of Sarah Gurridge to detect, for, beyond the occasional flashing of his quiet grey eyes, there was little or no outward sign.
“I have known you for a good many years, child; years which have helped to put a few grey hairs on my head, it is true, but still years which have taught 216 me something which I never dreamed of learning out here on the prairie. They have taught me that such a thing as love exists for every man on this earth, and that somewhere in this world there is a woman who can inspire him with feelings which make the pettinesses of his own solitary existence seem very small indeed. I have learned that man was not made to live alone, but that a certain woman must share his life with him, or that life is an utterly worthless thing. I have learned that there is but one woman in the world who can help me to the better, loftier aspirations of man, and that woman is––you, Prudence.”
The girl had ceased to work, and was staring straight in front of her out of the window, where the vivid lightning was now flashing incessantly. As Iredale pronounced the last words she shook her head slowly––almost helplessly. The man had leaned forward in his chair, and his elbows rested on his parted knees, and his hands were tightly clasped.