on the verandah--a graceful languid
figure--with a coyote rug heaped about him. It was clear to Elizabeth
that Anderson on his side had become very fond of the boy. There was no
trouble he would not take for him. And gradually, silently, proudly,
she allowed him to take less and less for herself.

Once or twice Arthur Delaine's clumsy hints occurred to her. Was there,
indeed, some private matter weighing on the young man's mind? She would
not allow herself to speculate upon it; though she could not help
watching the relation between the two men with some curiosity. It was
polite enough; but there was certainly no cordiality in it; and once or
twice she suspected a hidden understanding.

Delaine meanwhile felt a kind of dull satisfaction in the turn of
events. The intimacy between Anderson and Lady Merton had clearly been
checked, or was at least not advancing. Whether it was due to his own
hints to Elizabeth, or to Anderson's chivalrous feeling, he did not
know. But he wrote every mail to Mrs. Gaddesden, discreetly, yet not
without giving her some significant information; he did whatever small
services were possible in the case of a man who went about Canada as a
Johnny Head-in-air, with his mind in another hemisphere; and it was
understood that he was to leave them at Vancouver. In the forced
association of their walks and rides, Elizabeth showed herself gay,
kind, companionable; although often, and generally for no reason that he
could discover, something sharp and icy in her would momentarily make
itself felt, and he would find himself driven back within bounds that he
had perhaps been tempted to transgress. And the result of it all was
that he fell day by day more tormentingly in love with her. Those placid
matrimonial ambitions with which he had left England had been all swept
away; and as he followed her--she on pony-back, he on foot--along the
mountain trails, watching the lightness of her small figure against the
splendid background of peak and pine, he became a troubled,
introspective person; concentrating upon himself and his disagreeable
plight the attention he had hitherto given to a delightful outer world,
sown with the _caches_ of antiquity, in order to amuse him.

Meanwhile the situation in the cabin at Laggan appeared to be steadily
improving. McEwen had abruptly ceased to be a rebellious and difficult
patient. The doctor's orders had been obeyed; the leg had healed
rapidly; and he no longer threatened