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 he 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 account-books. Evidently the Factor's private office.
Ned Trent returned to th
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