Lady Merton, Colonist

despatched a message to Banff for Elizabeth's commissions. Then he made straight for the ugly frame house of which Delaine had given him the address. It was kept by a couple well k

familiar figure, especially since t

, some two or three hundred yards from the railway st

nnell came to the door, a tir

derson, standing in the doorway, "a man called McEwen;

's countenan

crater. When he arrived two days ago he was worse for liquor, took on at Calgary. I made my husband look after him that night to see he didn't get at nothing, bu

, Mrs. Ginnell. Don't you trou

of 'em left this morning--

ll's house of the first year, now used as a kind o

a kind of human rag. Anderson paused a moment, then entered, hung the

the restless stage before waking. McEwen threw hi

eding in his mind, the memories it evoked, were rending and blinding him. The winter morning on the snow-strewn prairie, the smell of smoke blown towards him on the wind, the flames of the burning house,

us, red-haired, coarsely handsome, though already undermined by drink. The man lying on the straw was approaching seventy, and might have been much older. His matted hair

this spectacle. A natural shame interven

t Ande

tarted up, and Anderson saw his hand dart for s

son grasp

raid; you're

ff the grasp, to see who it was standing over him. Anderson r

light showed him his son George--the fair-haired, broad-shoulder

imself, with an a

ge? You might have

?" said Anderson, indistinctly. "And

f 'em. I had to get rid of--I did get rid of 'em--and you, too. I knew you were inquiring after me, and I didn't want inquiries. They didn't suit me. You may con

w I was

he other composedly.

have you

but you get a stroke of luck sometimes. I've got a cha

ht you back

, Mrs. Harriet Sykes. E

shook h

and was left a widder with no children. And when she died t'other day, she'd left me something in her will, and told the lawyers to advertise over here, in Canada and

ere you

n't expect to come on yer tracks as fast as all that. But there you were, and when you came out and went down t' street, I just followed you at a safe distance, and saw you go into the hotel. Afterwards, I went into the Free Library to think a bit, and then I saw the piece in the paper ab

and sinister triumph. Anderson sat with his head in his hands, h

come and speak

her he

me. And I don't like towns--too many people about. Thought I'd catch you somewhere on the qui

yourself known to me," said Anderson sombrely. "Why did

esitated

it. And I'd lost my nerve, damn it! the last few years. Th

s deeply flushed; his brow frowned unconscious

to that gentlema

, and began to pluck some pi

way. I might have said you were never an easy chap to get on with.

nion. A father overborne by misfortunes and poverty, disowned by a prosperous and Pharisaical son--admitting a few peccadilloes, such as most men forgive, in order to weig

ure before him to play the part of innocent misfortune, at all events. Could debauch, could ruin of body

as to his own past responsibility, a horror of the future. Then his w

er. "Come back into the house. There are

stumbled over a jug in Mrs. Ginnell's kitchen, breaking the jug and inflicting some deep cuts on his own foot and ankle. McEwen, indeed, could only limp along, with mingled curses and lamentations, supported by Anderson. In the

in one on the ground floor, then shut the door on him and went back to the woman of the house. She stood looking at him, flu

p could be determined. She was to wait on him, to keep drink from him, to get him clothes. Her husband was to go out with him, if he should insist on going out; but

d secured her. She threw herself nobly into the business. Anderson might command her as he pleased, and she answered for her man. Renewed groans from the room next do

s to heal with such as

is father. If the old man chose to announce himself, so be it. Anderson did not mean to bargain or sue. Other men have had to bear such burdens in the face of the world. Should it fall t

e effect that a doctor would be sent up on a freight

ir there was at last a promise of "midsummer pomps." Pine woods and streams breathed freshness, and when in his walk along the railway line--since there is no other road through the Kicking Horse Pass--he reached a point whence

h Anderson's being. He had till now felt a kind of instinctive contempt for Delaine as a fine gentleman with a useless education, inclined to patronise "colonists." The two men had jarred from the beginning, and at Banff, Anderson had both divined in him the possible suitor of Lady Merton, and had also become aware that Delaine resented his own intrusion upon the party, and the rapi

ady M

man might behold on one side the smoke-wreaths of the great railway, and on the other side the still virgin peaks of the northern Rockies,

oiled from the truth he was at last compelled to recognise. In this daily companionship with a sensitive and charming woman, endowed beneath her light reserve with all the sweetness of unspoilt feeling, while yet commanding through her

tree-trunks that bordered the line, his arms

this impotent and angry despair? Before his eyes had seen that figure lying on the straw of Mrs.

of crisis, the man in him stood up, confident and rebellious. He knew himself sound, intellectually and morally. There was a career before him, to which a cool and reasonable ambition looked forward without any paralysi

to Elizabeth's lovely sympathy, her generous detachment, her free kindling mind--that his life had gone out. She would, surely, never be deterred from marrying a Canadian--if he pleased her--because it would cut her off from London and Paris, and all the ripe antiquities and traditions of English or European life? Even in the sparsely peopled Northwest,

ave flattered the tyranny of longing an

being as he had left behind him in the log-hut at Laggan? Link her life in however remote a fashion with that life? Treachery and sacrilege, indeed! No need for Delaine to tell him that! His father as a grim memory of

ni

pon him, through a thousand channels of association, the recollection of his mother. He saw her now--the worn, roughened face, the sweet swimming eyes; he felt her arms around him, the tears of her long agony on his face. She had endured--he too must endure. Close, close--he pres

Lake Louise, as he had promised, on the following morning. As far as his own intention was concerned, he would not cease to

e doctor, climbing the steep pass. He stepped on briskly to

en he and the doctor emerg

old Mrs. Ginnell what to do; but the old fellow's in a pretty c

ground and his hands in his pockets,

er they've held out so long, and then--a s

usto. A miner from Nevada? Queer hells often, those mining cam

his family? Canadian, to

for help. Did he tell y

ke his fortune, if he can raise the money to buy it up. If he can raise fifte

t?" said Anderson, absently

from drink, if you can. But I doubt if you'll cheat the undertaker ver

er had dropped asleep, left money and directions wit

e secret of McEwen's identity. The old man had not revealed himself to the doctor. Did that mean that--in spite of his first reckl

ine of action. When at last he began to write, he wrote