bout _that_ is, that I, for one,
don't like that kind of conduct. You've half killed Bates, and this
winter will finish him off."

"That's not my fault," said Eliza.

"Oh? Well, that's for you to settle with yourself. I thought I'd come
and tell you what I thought about it, and that he was going. That's all
I've got to say."

"But I've something more to say, and you'll stay and hear it." She
folded her arms upon her breast, and looked at him, a contemptuous,
indignant Amazon. "You think Mr. Bates would thank you if you got me to
go away with him because I was afraid he'd die. You think"--growing
sarcastic--"that Mr. Bates wants me to go with him because _I'm sorry
for him_. I tell you, if I did what you're asking, Mr. Bates would be
the first to tell you to mind your own business and to send me about
mine."

She relapsed into cold silence for a minute, and then added, "If you
think Mr. Bates can't do his own love-making, you're vastly mistaken."

It did not help to soothe Alec that, when he went home, his brother
laughed at his recital.

"She is a coarse-minded person," he said. "I shall never speak to her
again."

This had happened the day before he drove Bates to the station.

It was a midday train. The railway platform was comparatively empty, for
the season of summer visitors was past. The sun glared with unsoftened
light on the painted station building, on the bare boards of the
platform, upon the varnished exterior of the passenger cars, and in,
through their windows, upon the long rows of red velvet seats. Alec
disposed Bates and his bundles on a seat near the stove at the end of
one of the almost empty cars. Then he stood, without much idea what to
say in the few minutes before the train started.

"Well," said he, "you'll be at Quebec before dark."

As they both knew this, Bates did not consider it worth an answer. His
only desire was that the train should be gone, so that he might be left
alone. He was a good deal oppressed by the idea of his indebtedness to
Alec, but he had already said all on that head that was in him to say;
it had not been much.

An urchin came by, bawling oranges. They looked small and sour, but, for
sheer lack of anything better to do, Alec went out of the car to buy a
couple. He was just stepping in again to present them when, to his
surprise, he became aware that one of the various people on the platform
was Eliza Cameron. When he caught sight of her she was coming running