“When then? Set a limit to my uncertainty.”
“Not until after the trial.”
“Burton’s trial. If he should be acquitted?”
“You will know your answer.”
“And if convicted?”
“Then I will take time. Oh, please don’t force me to be unkind. I cannot give myself—you would not take the gift—without love. I must analyse my own heart, and I cannot do that while this cloud hangs over—us. When it has dispersed, or settled, I will know.”
He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. “You are kind,” he said, “and fair.”
[CHAPTER XI—A FRIEND IN NEED]
| “Oh, I take ’em from the counter, the factory, the mine, They are rough-and-ready rascals till I lick ’em into line; They are coming, coming, coming, from the land of Who-Knows-Where, Black and white and many-tinted, brown and yellow, dark and fair; They are coming from the valley, from the prairie, from the hill, They are coming from the ‘May I?’ to the country of ‘I will!’ And for some the smart of failure, and for some Achievement’s crown, As I roll ’em out Canadians—all but the yellow and brown.” The Empire Builders. |
Burton looked cautiously through the window. A little fire was burning on the wet floor, and between him and the fire stood Gardiner, facing the corner in which Miss Vane sat, pale and troubled. With a gasp he sank to the earth. What tragedy was this, enacted before his eyes? Why were these two here, in such a place, at such a time? Could not revengeful Providence spare him even this? Why had he been led through that howling night to this spot, to this scene, of all the places on the great prairie?