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And yet Hodder had the feeling, more firmly planted than ever, that McCrae was awaiting, with an interest which might be called suspense, the culmination of the process going on within him. Well, now that he had worked it out, now that he had reached his decision, it was incumbent upon him to tell his assistant what that decision was. Hodder shrank from it as from an ordeal.
Mr. McCrae was strongly opposed to any discussion being raised in regard to the question being considered in its financial aspects. They, as gas engineers, did not require to trouble themselves with the doings of investors. He regarded the Welsbach burner as an improved appliance for consuming gas.
"Maybe it will come, Mr. Hodder," he said. "There's no telling when the light will strike in." It was the nearest to optimism he had ever known his assistant to approach. "McCrae," he asked, "have you ever tried to do anything with Dalton Street?" "Dalton Street?" The real McCrae, whom he had seemed to see emerging, retired abruptly, presenting his former baffling and noncommittal exterior.
A toss of liquor and a bite it will put the heart in us again. We must cheer up for the women, lad." But in spite of this resolution supper was not a merry meal. Talk was spasmodic, interrupted by long silences. Mrs. McCrae slight, gentle, motherly, with wavy silver hair was plainly worried. Her husband brooded unconsciously over his plate.
"I'm going west home," he said, and the word sounded odd. "At this season! But there is nobody in church, at least only a few, and Mr. McCrae can take care of those he always does. He likes it." Hodder smiled in spite of himself. He might have told her that those outside the church were troubling him. But he did not, since he had small confidence in being able to bring them in.
To-morrow it may be some one else." "Yes, I see. But what can you do about it? The law " "It's outside the law," said Casey. "The law is too slow. We'll make our own law. Hello! What's that?" He jumped to his feet, gun in hand, as the chair set against the door scraped back from it. Out of the darkness staggered Sheila McCrae.
The comparative coolness, the quiet, the soft cushions were good after a day in the saddle. Down there on the Coldstream the strict proprieties did not trouble them. If any one had suggested to Sheila McCrae that she was imprudent in visiting a bachelor's ranch unchaperoned, she would have been both amazed and indignant. And it would have been unsafe to hint at such a thing to Casey Dunne.
In a flash she saw the story the cold facts printed in a newspaper as they would undoubtedly be or told by gossips, glad of a scandal to repeat: She, Peggy's mother and Richard Ayling together at a country inn the sudden and sensational discovery of Ayling's death.... She could see the stern face of Lady McCrae the accusing blue eyes of Andrew McCrae ... and Peggy's stricken face.
"But you said nothing, McCrae," he began presently. "I felt all along that you knew what was wrong if you had only spoken." "I could not," said McCrae. "I give ye my word I tried, but I just could not. Many's the time I wanted to but I said to myself, when I looked at you, 'wait, it will come, much better than ye can say it. And ye have made me see more than I saw, Mr. Hodder, already ye have.
And then she began at the beginning with her daughter's engagement to young Andrew McCrae, her happiness, her security and quietly, with only now and then a slight tension of her body and her voice, she told it all to them, exactly as it happened, without plea or embellishment. She had only one stress, and that she tried to make reasonable to them her child's security.
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