e
disturbed. So had he looked all one night and all one day in the
long time ago. The Factor stretched his arms out to the figure on
the couch, but he called upon his wife, gone these twenty years.

"Elodie! Elodie!" he murmured, softly. She had never known it,
thank God, but he had wronged her too. In all sorrow and sweet
heavenly pity he had believed that her youth had turned to the
youth of the other man. It had not been so. Did be not owe her,
too, some reparation?

As though in answer to his appeal, or perhaps that merely the sound
of a human voice had broken the last shreds of her swoon, the girl
moved slightly. Galen Albret did not stir. Slowly Virginia turned
her head, until finally her wandering eyes met his, fixed on her
with passionate intensity. For a moment she stared at him, then
comprehension came to her along with memory. She cried out, and sat
upright in one violent motion.

"He! He!" she cried. "Is he gone?"

Instantly Galen Albret had her in his arms.

"It is all right," he soothed, drawing her close to his great
breast. "All right. You are my own little girl."

Chapter Eighteen

For perhaps ten minutes Ned Trent lingered near the door of the
Council Room until he had assured himself that Virginia was in no
serious danger. Then he began to pace the room examining minutely
the various objects that ornamented it. He paused longest at the
full length portrait of Sir George Simpson, the Company's great
traveller, with his mild blue eyes, his kindly face, denying the
potency of his official frown, his snowy hair and whiskers. The
painted man and the real man looked at each, other inquiringly.
The latter shook his head. "You travelled the wild country far,"
said he, thoughtfully. "You knew many men of many lands. And
wherever you went they tell me you made friends. And yet, as you
embodied this Company to all these people, and so made for the
fanatical loyalty that is destroying me, I suppose you and I are
enemies!" He shrugged his shoulders whimsically and turned away.

Thence he cast a fleeting glance out the window at the long reach
of the Moose and the blue bay gleaming in the distance. He tried
the outside door. It was locked. Taken with a new idea he
proceeded at once to the third door of the apartment. It opened.

He found himself in a small and much-littered room containing a
desk, two chairs, a vast quantity of papers, a stuffed bird or so,
and a row of acco