cted. That was also a relief to him.

"Then," she said, "I am sure that his father would like to meet you.
There was some trouble between them--I don't know which was wrong--and
Lance went out to Canada, and never wrote. By and bye, Major Radcliffe
tried to trace him through a Vancouver banker, and only found that he
had died in the hands of a stranger who had done all that was possible
for him." She turned to Wyllard with a look which set his heart
beating rather faster than usual. "You are that man?"

"Yes," said Wyllard simply, "I did what I could for him. It didn't
amount to very much. He was too far gone."

Then at her request he told her the story he had told to Hawtrey, and
when he had finished her face was soft again, for it had stirred her
curiously.

"But," she said, "he had no claim on you."

Wyllard lifted one hand as if in expostulation. "He was dying in the
bush. Wasn't that enough?"

The girl made no answer for a moment or two. She had earned her living
for several years, and was, because of it, to some extent acquainted
with the grim realities of life. She did not know that while there are
certainly hard men in Canada, the small farmers and ranchers of the
West--and, perhaps above all, the fearless free lances who build
railroads and grapple with giant trees in the forests of the Pacific
slope--are, as a rule, distinguished by a splendid charity. With them
the sick or worn-out stranger is very seldom turned away. Still,
watching her companion covertly, she understood that this man whom she
had seen for the first time three days ago had done exactly what she
would have expected of him. Then she proceeded to give him the
information she supposed he desired.

"I saw a good deal of Lance Radcliffe--when I was younger," she said.
"His people still live at Garside Scar, close by Dufton Holme. I
presume you will call on them?"

Wyllard said that he proposed doing so as he had a watch and one or two
other mementoes that they might like to have, and when she told him how
to reach Dufton Holme by a very round-about railway journey he supposed
it lay somewhere in the dale to which he already purposed going. Then
she turned to him again.

"There is one point that rather puzzles me," she said. "How did you
know that I could tell you anything about him?"

The man thrust his hand into his pocket, and took out a little leather
case.

"You are by no means a stranger to me," he said, and quie