Bull looked up. In an instant his whole attitude underwent a complete change. His eyes lit, and he sprang from his seat behind the desk. He came towards the shrinking girl, eager and smiling with the welcome his love inspired.
"Why, say, Nancy," he cried. "I just hadn't a notion it was you. I was up to my neck in all this stuff," he said, indicating the litter on his desk, "and I hadn't a thought but it was the darn Chink come to worry with food." He laughed. "You certainly have handed me some scare since you got a grip on our crazy household. I've got a nightmare all the time I've got to eat. And the trouble is I'd hate to miss any of it. Will you come right over to the window and sit? There's daylight enough still. We don't need to use Skert's electric juice till we have to. I'm real glad you came along."
The man's delight was transparent. Nancy remained unresponsive, however. She was blind to everything but the thing she had come to do, and the hopelessness that weighed so heavily upon her.
"I'm sorry," she said simply, accepting the chair he set for her. "I didn't think you'd—you see, I waited till I guessed you'd be through. But I won't keep you. It's just a small favour, that's all."
Bull observed her closely. She was so amazingly and completely charming. She was no longer clad in the rough, warm garments of the trail. Even the cotton overall she used in the work of the house had been removed. Now a dainty frock, that had no relation to the rigours of Labrador, displayed the delicate beauty of her figure, and perfectly harmonised with the colouring of her wonderful hair. Somehow it seemed to the man her beauty had intensified in its appeal since the day of her supreme confidence in the cause for which she had so devotedly fought.
"A favour?" he laughed. "Why, I'm just glad."
Even while he spoke Bull remembered his talk with Bat Harker when he had listened to a wealth of pitying comment upon the feelings and opinions he had then laid bare. The girl's unsmiling eyes troubled him.
"What's the favour?" he asked simply, as Nancy remained silent.
The girl started. She had turned to the evening light pouring in through the window. Her thought had wandered to that grim, dark future when the twilit forests would close about her, and the strong tones of this man's voice would never again be able to reach her.
She drew a folded paper from the bosom of her frock.