Grace was not on the couch where she had lain so long, but was sitting in a chair by the stove. Her face was hidden in her hands, and she appeared to be weeping bitterly. Plainly the bad news had already been told to her, and Bertha clenched her hands hard at the thought of the pain she must be suffering. But the amazing thing was that a frail old man knelt at her feet, his straggling white hair hanging down on the collar of his coat, his hands clasped in entreaty, while he was speaking in a high-pitched wavering voice, pleading as if his life depended on his gaining the thing for which he asked.

“Say, is there enough goodness and charity in your heart to enable you to forgive an old man who has sinned so sorely, that if you will not forgive him, perchance he will lack forgiveness from heaven also? I was mad with jealousy that Tom should prefer an invalid wife and a houseful of little helpless children to me and the power my money could give him. I have had so little love in my life, and by my folly I have flung away what I might have had. But now, if you will forgive me for the sake of the holy dead, I promise you that want shall never touch you nor those children who call him father. Ah, I would not help him when I could, and now it is my punishment that he will not know how sorely I have repented my hardness towards him.” The old man’s white head dropped lower on his upraised hands, and a choking sob broke from him which was echoed by Grace.

Eunice and the children were not to be seen, but from the sounds which came to the ears of Bertha, as she stood hesitating on the threshold, she guessed that Eunice was trying to keep them quiet in the bedrooms until the visitor had had his interview with their mother.

But who could this old man be? Then at the same moment she recognized him as the old man whom she had taken care of when he was ill on the train during her journey out west, and at once she knew that he must be Tom’s Uncle Joe, the queer old man who had cast his nephew off, yet who seemed to be always hanging round on the offchance of making up with him again.

Grace must be comforted. That was the one thought in Bertha’s mind, as she stepped quickly across the floor and, pushing the old man to one side with very little ceremony, knelt down and wound her arms with a loving pressure about Grace.

“Oh, my dear! my dear! I have tried so hard to get home to tell you all about it myself, and it is dreadful to think that you should have had to hear it from someone else! But, Grace, dear Grace, don’t believe it all just at the first, because it might not be true, you know,” said Bertha, bringing her words out in a great hurry, and speaking of the hope to which she herself clung, yet without any previous intention of doing so; for both she and Edgar Bradgate had decided that it was not kind to let Grace indulge in any hope which had no chance of proving true.

“Bertha, Bertha, it can’t surely be true! It is too ghastly and horrible! Why, I have been expecting Tom every day since the snow went away, and now to be told that he will never come home at all—oh, it is too hard to bear!” wailed the invalid, clinging to the girl’s slight figure with the desperation of despair.

“Then keep on expecting him until we are quite sure,” whispered Bertha, in loving encouragement. “There can be no harm in hoping until there is no longer anything to hope for. Of course it was a kind thought of this—this gentleman to come and tell you the bad news, but on the whole it will be kinder not to insist on your believing it just yet.”

“I did not come solely to tell the bad news, but to assure the widow of my dear nephew that I would take care of her and her helpless children for the sake of the dear dead,” said the old man, with trembling tones, it is true, but with so much arrogance of manner, because of the favour he had it in his power to bestow, that Bertha was stung into impetuous speech.

“Grace will not be an object of charity, nor will she need that you should take care of her for the sake of her husband. I shall take care of her for her own sweet sake, and because, when my mother died, she came and took care of me,” she said, tumbling her words out in a great hurry, and getting very red in the face from indignation at what she deemed the horrible patronage in the old man’s manner.

He held up his hands in a meekly protesting fashion.

“Oh, my dear, you have a long life before you in which you may do kind acts to anyone you please, and lay up for yourself a harvest of blessedness for the years to come. But I have only a few years to live at the most, and there is no time for me to make amends for all the wrong things that I have done, but I want to gather just a little love for myself before my barren life comes to an end, so do not refuse to let me help at least in providing the necessary money to keep the home going.”

The note of wistful pleading in the old man’s tone at once melted Bertha’s resentment against him, and she gently guided him to a chair on the other side of the stove. “Sit down and rest a little; there will be plenty of time in which to decide what it is best to do when we are quite sure that Tom really died in that frozen-out camp. But just now Grace is tired, and must stay quiet for a while.”

“Thank you, yes; and I will rest too, for I also am tired,” he answered, submitting to be put into the chair as if he were a child, and then he sat leaning back with his eyes closed, and looking so frail that Bertha became suddenly anxious on his account; for this was just how he had looked that day when he was taken ill on the train.

“Oh, Bertha, what a comfort it is to have you back again!” cried Grace; and then she said anxiously, “But poor Eunice is in there with the children. I asked her to take them out of the way when Uncle Joe first began to speak, and I do not think that she heard anything about it. But she must be told. Can you tell her, dear?”

Bertha nodded, and, crossing the room, opened the bedroom door, where Eunice was doing her best to keep the children from making a forcible rush out upon the visitor who was talking to their mother.

“Dicky, there is a gentleman out in the barn trying to unhitch that black horse which Bill Humphries drives over here sometimes. I wish that you would go and help him. Take Molly with you, and ask the gentleman if he will unhitch the pair as well,” said Bertha, and, nothing loath, the two eldest dashed straight through the kitchen and out-of-doors without staying to bestow a single glance upon their mother or the frail old man who sat in the chair on the far side of the stove. They were followed by the twins and sturdy little Noll, so Bertha and Eunice were left alone.

“Bertha, what has that old man come to tell Mrs. Ellis? Is it anything about the Expedition?” asked Eunice, her face sharpened into anxious lines.

“Yes, there is news, and bad news, but Inspector Grant is sending reliable men to investigate, and it will be seven weeks, or perhaps two months, before we can know for certain,” said Bertha, coming to the point without any delay, because she realized that it was the kindest thing to do.

Eunice shivered and turned white, but she did not faint or give way to hysterical ravings. Those women of the west had to face grave issues too often to be strangers to death or disaster, so she was silent for a little time, and then she said: “I am so thankful that you have come home, because now I can go back to Pentland Broads to—to be ready for anything that may come.”

“Yes, you will be able to go back now, that is, to-morrow morning; but, unless I am much mistaken, you and I shall have our hands full to-night with that poor old man out yonder. He is an old uncle of Tom’s. He is nearly frantic about this bad news, and I have seen him like this before, for he is the old man who was so ill on the train when we were snowed up on my journey out west.”

Bertha had struck a right note when she spoke of the need there might be for the help of Eunice in taking care of Uncle Joe; for it seemed to quiet her directly and to take away the eager desire to be gone which had come to her on hearing the evil tidings.

“I was just beginning to get supper ready when he came, and oh, Bertha, he behaved like a man distraught,” said Eunice, in a whisper, and then she followed Bertha back to the outer room, where the two of them laid Grace back on her couch, and then began active preparations for supper, for with extra people to feed it was necessary to set about preparing the meal for them.

“How did you come?” asked Eunice, putting aside her own pain and anxiety, which must perforce wait for seven or eight weeks before it could be made into certainty of any kind. It was there all the time, but was pushed into the background for the sake of other people.

The old man took no notice of either of them, but sat with his eyes shut, while they moved softly to and fro between the stove and the table, until the daylight began to merge into the shades of night. Then the door burst open and the children trooped in, dragging Edgar Bradgate with them.

“I have unhitched all the horses, and, if you will permit me to shake down in the barn, I think it will be better for me not to attempt the journey on to Pentland Broads to-night,” he said, addressing himself in courteous tones to Bertha, after he had been duly presented to Eunice. “That horse of Mr. Humphries has done a heavy day’s work, and is rather the worse for it, and the pair are just about spun out. Where have they been driven from, do you know?”

But Bertha only shook her head with a warning glance at the old man, who seemed to be dozing in the corner, and then she said that she feared Mr. Bradgate would find it very uncomfortable in the barn.

“It is a decidedly more palatial lodging than I had at Brocken Ridge,” he answered cheerfully. “Why, the men in the State prisons are far more comfortably lodged than we were. Now, if you will give me the pail, I will go and milk. I have already fed the pigs and the poultry under the guidance of Dicky.”

“It is very kind of you,” said Bertha, but she accepted his services without any protest; for where there was so much to be done it was only fair that each one should take his or her part, and she was anxious to spare Eunice as much as she possibly could.

It was not until supper was ready on the table that the old man roused himself, and then he appealed to Grace, as the head of the household, to know whether he might stay there all night, because he felt too ill and worn out to go any farther.

Grace gave one swift, imploring look at Bertha, and, reading what she wanted there, answered, with sweet cordiality: “Why, yes, Uncle Joe, of course we shall be very glad to have you, and I hope that you will not find the children too noisy for your comfort.”

“Thank you, my dear niece, thank you,” he said, then sat with his head drooped forward as before, while Bertha watched him uneasily, for just so had he sat on that day in the train before he had been taken ill.

Then Edgar Bradgate came in, carrying the pail with the evening’s milk, and she went with him into the little pantry, which was also storeroom, to put it away, then when he came back with her they sat down to supper.

“Don’t trouble; Noll and I can share chairs,” said Edgar, with a laugh, as he lifted the youngest of the Ellis children on to his knee, to save Eunice the trouble of fetching another chair from the bedroom.

It was then that the old man lifted his head, opened his eyes, and looked straight at Edgar. A curious change came over him then, and Bertha, who was looking at him, thought that he was going to have a fit.

For a moment he sat speechless, his face working strangely, then he sprang to his feet and hurled himself upon the astonished young man, who was nursing Noll, crying out in incoherent rage: “You—you thief, you thief! What have you done with my property, which you stole before my very eyes?”

Bertha sprang up also, her face very white. “Hush, hush, you will feel better soon!” she said soothingly.

But he pushed her aside with an impatient hand and, gripping Edgar by the coat, shook him savagely, as a dog shakes a rat which he is worrying to death.

“Where is my case of diamonds that you stole?” he shouted, his voice rising to a shriek of fury. “I say, what have you done with my diamonds? Worth two hundred thousand dollars they were, and you walked off with them as calmly as if they were your own, though I shouted and yelled until I was hoarse! What have you done with them? I say, what have you done with them?”

“Look here, try to be a little quieter, if you can, and tell me what you mean,” said Edgar, standing quite still and speaking in a soothing tone, for it was easy to see that the old man was in a state of dangerous excitement.

“Haven’t I told you already?” shrieked Uncle Joe, more furious than before. “I have searched for you everywhere! Your description has been posted up in every police barracks between here and Nova Scotia, and I knew that I should run you to earth at last, and you cannot escape me now!”

Was there ever such a scene of confusion?

Noll burst into howls of terror, and the twins speedily followed suit, the three of them scuttling away to their mother’s sofa, under which they bolted like rabbits to their burrow. Dicky and Molly cast themselves upon Bertha, loudly demanding protection from the naughty old man, who had grumbled at their mother until she cried, and then had attacked the nice kind man who had unhitched the horses and milked the cow; and for a few moments, despite the best endeavours of Bertha and Eunice towards peace and quiet, the turmoil was so great that it was impossible for anyone’s voice to pierce the din of screaming and crying which arose from the excited old man and the badly scared children.

But Edgar Bradgate stood perfectly quiet, and it was his calmness which finally soothed the old man into something like self-control again. Then he addressed himself to Grace in a tone of apology, even looking a little ashamed of his outburst.

“I crave your pardon, my dear niece, for making such an unseemly riot in your quiet home, and my excuse must be the extreme provocation that I have received. For two long years I have been tracking this man from the description which I could give of him, but I did not even know his name, and I have often despaired of bringing him to justice or getting my stolen property back again; so when I saw him calmly sitting on the other side of the table and nursing your child as if he were quite at home in the house, I will admit that I permitted my temper to run away with my discretion.”

“But won’t you tell us what it is that he has done, Uncle Joe, and then we shall be better able to understand things?” asked Grace, in a persuasive tone, and casting such a look of kindly encouragement at the accused as rendered the old man almost incoherent from indignation again.

“What he has done! What he has done! Why, it was the most barefaced robbery that I have ever heard of, and why he was not taken at the time with the stones upon him I could never understand; for I raised outcry enough. Indeed, I have often thought that the police must have been in league with him, and so they connived at his escape,” raved Uncle Joe, shaking his prisoner again with a savage air; but Edgar bore it with perfect patience, waiting quietly for explanations.

“What did he steal?” asked Grace again, while, as before, she sent a kindly glance towards the accused.

“Diamonds, magnificent uncut diamonds!” shouted the excited old man, with another fierce shake of his passive prisoner. “I had just taken a case of diamonds from a man, and I had lent him two hundred thousand dollars on them. I stuffed the case into the breast pocket of my overcoat—a brown cloth coat it was, with one top button missing, which a tipsy man had dragged off the day before, pulled it out by the roots, in fact—and I got into the cars, for I was off to Paston to attend a meeting of shareholders of a company which had gone wrong. I stood to lose five hundred thousand dollars over that business, so I was feeling pretty sore all round, or perhaps I might have taken more care of my diamonds. I was late in reaching the meeting, and I went into a dressing-room to leave my coat, which I took off and tossed on to a heap of others, quite forgetting that I had left the case of diamonds there. But I remembered it before I reached the room of the hotel where the meeting was being held, and I was turning back as quickly as I could move, when the door opened and an excited young man dashed out. He rushed past me and hurried into the waiting-room, picked up a coat, and dashed off again by another door; and it was not until he had gone that I saw it was my coat he had taken with him. I think something gave way inside my head at that moment, for I seemed to go quite mad when I rushed after him screaming and shouting at the top of my voice. But I did not catch him, and from that day to this I have only seen him once.”

“When was that?” demanded Grace; but into the face of Bertha there had come the light of a great relief, and, turning a little aside, her hands were busy fumbling at the front of her blouse to reach the little bag which she wore strapped round her neck.

“It was just before harvest in the very next year—indeed, it was that day when I came to borrow some money from Tom, and you told me that he was too poor to lend it to me—I was driving back to Pentland Broads by a cross-trail through the wheat, when a man passed me driving a wagon, smothered in dirt and dust he was, but I knew him again. It was the man who had run away with my coat and the case of diamonds—this man who stands here, and let him deny it if he can!” cried the old man, as his lean fingers took a firmer grip of his prisoner.

“I don’t even want to deny it,” said Edgar Bradgate quietly, and then he looked across at Bertha, saying, with a smile, “The explanation lies with you, Miss Doyne.”

And Bertha was quick to respond. Giving a final tug to the bag at her neck, she pulled it out, and, drawing the case from it, she laid it in the hand of the angry old man, saying quietly: “Can you tell me if those are the stones which you lost? Because, if they are, they have been in my possession ever since the day when you lost them, and Mr. Bradgate has known nothing whatever about them.”

“They are mine! They are mine!” shrieked the old man, and the shock of recovering them so suddenly being quite too much for him, he dropped where he stood in a faint on the floor.

Edgar Bradgate stooped to lift him. “I was afraid so much excitement must have been bad for the poor old fellow,” he said, in a pitying tone, and then he handed back the case of diamonds to Bertha, for they had dropped from the old man’s nerveless hand, “You will have to take care of this case again, Miss Doyne. It seems to be your fate to have those stones in your custody.”

“Take care of them, Grace, they are more your business than mine, now that we know to whom they belong,” said Bertha, tossing the case on to her cousin’s couch, and then she went to help Edgar and Eunice restore the old man to consciousness again.

But that was what their combined efforts could not do. For a long time they worked, doing their utmost, but the frail old body had been quite unfit to bear the strain of such fierce excitement, coming, as it probably did, upon a long fast, and at length Eunice desisted from her task and said to the others:

“We can do no more, and I think that the poor old man is dying. We ought to have the doctor.”

“I will go for him,” said Edgar, without hesitation. “The moon should be thinking of showing pretty soon now, and I shall be able to find my way along the trail all right.”

“But the horse—you said that it was dead beat,” said Bertha.

“Can’t I have your old horse?” he asked. “That, at any rate, is fresh enough by the way it squealed and kicked when I fed it this evening.”

“Oh, I had forgotten Pucker,” Bertha said, with a great relief in her tone. “I will go and hitch up while you get some supper. No, it is of no use to protest, because you have not had one proper meal to-day, and I can feed when you are gone. Then, too, I can harness old Pucker quicker than you could hope to do it; for the old horse has a rather queer temper, and simply loves to show off to strangers.”

Edgar gave way then, since there was so much truth in what Bertha said about being able to hitch up more quickly than he could do it; so he went back to the kitchen, where the neglected supper was spread upon the table, then he coaxed the children out from their hiding-place about the sofa and fed them while he got his own meal. Of course the coffee was cold, but even cold coffee is satisfying to a man who has not had a proper meal for twenty-four hours, and when one is very hungry, anything in the way of food becomes absolutely appetizing.

The children were also very hungry, and so they were the more easily consoled, although, it is sad to relate, they could not hide their elation when they knew that the cross old man was very ill, and Molly voiced the general opinion when she said that she hoped that he would stay so.

“Can I bring you anything, Mrs. Ellis, or do anything for you?” Edgar asked, when he had the children all happily employed at the table.

“Thank you, no. I shall do very well until Bertha or Eunice has time to attend to me,” Grace answered, and then, a thought coming into her mind, she asked quickly, “Will you tell me quite candidly whether you think that I have any reason to keep on hoping that my husband is alive? I know that Bertha would bid me hope, from the very best of motives, just to keep me from giving way to despair; but what do you think?”

What could he say? Previously he had not had the slightest doubt that the whole of the Expedition had shared the same fate, but, to his own surprise, he suddenly found himself doubting. Why should everyone be so ready to believe that they had all perished? Was it likely that a score or more of able-bodied men would tamely sit down for death to claim them when the stores gave out? It was much more likely that they would make an attempt to reach some place where food could be found, and so, although they might have to suffer great hardships, they might yet win through.

“What do you think?” persisted Grace, her wistful eyes scanning his face to see if haply she could glean a little hope from its expression.

He hesitated a moment, then answered frankly, “Five minutes ago I did not think it possible for there to be any more hope that they have any of them survived, but now I am disposed to think that perhaps we may hear of some of them having got through; only, it will take some time for that, you know, and we cannot be sure of anything for weeks and weeks yet to come. Don’t give up hope all the time that there is the barest shred of hope to cling to.”

“Thank you,” she answered softly, and he went out of the house with a pang at his heart, because he had no better comfort to give to her.

“It is so cold to-night, that you will need to wrap up well. Have you no other coat?” asked Bertha, when she led old Pucker up to the door.

“No; you see my entire wardrobe,” he said, with a laugh which was quite free from embarrassment. His poverty was owing to no fault of his own, so there was no need to be ashamed of it; then he asked, “Could you lend me a sack or an old rug to wrap round me? It will never do to let the influenza fiend find me out again, or I shall be a nuisance to somebody as I was before.”

Bertha darted into the house and returned in a moment with a shabby brown coat that had a well-worn black velvet collar, and this she held out for his use.

“Most likely it is your own coat, the one which you left behind when you picked up the poor old man’s by mistake,” she said, with a nervous laugh. “At any rate, it is as much like the one in which I found the diamonds as it is possible for one coat to be like another.”

“Wait a moment, I will just run through the pockets before I put it on, in case there should be anything valuable there,” he said, taking the coat from her and feeling in all the pockets, turning out gloves, handkerchief, and a bulky woollen scarf.

“Oh, there is the old neck-wrap that I gave him that cold day when we were snowed up on the rail!” she cried, picking it up and holding it out for inspection.

“May I borrow that also?” Edgar held out his hand for it, and she gave it to him with a sudden sense of embarrassment not to be accounted for by any laws of reason or logic.

Even the touch of their hands as they met added to her unexplained confusion, and she was glad that it was so dark out on the veranda that he could not possibly see how violently she was blushing about nothing at all.

But was it nothing at all? Something like panic set up in Bertha’s heart as she went back into the house, where Eunice was still busy with the poor old man. It was of no use for her to try and blind herself to what that sudden confusion meant, and her fear was lest someone else should read on her face the very same tidings that her heart was telling her in such unmistakable language just then.

“Oh, I should die of shame if anyone were to guess that I cared for him!” she said to herself, with a little gasping sob, then she plunged into the confusion of things waiting to be done, and losing some of her miserable self-consciousness as she darted to and fro, clearing the table, putting the children to bed, and comforting Grace between whiles.

She dared not trust herself to think how she would manage to meet Edgar Bradgate when he came back with the doctor. She would have to thrust this new knowledge of her own heart far into the background, lest haply it should be seen by the very eyes from which she was most concerned to hide it.

Meanwhile Pucker was tearing along the lonely trail to Pentland Broads, with the wagon swaying and bumping in the rear.

The man who was driving was trying hard not to go to sleep, but he was so tired that wakefulness was almost beyond him. He had hardly dared to close his eyes on the long journey down from Brocken Ridge in the empty freighter, for he had been so afraid that Bertha might want him, and that he should not hear her, and it would not have fitted his ideas of what was right and proper to fail the girl, who had gone through so much to serve him.

He had been looking forward to a night’s rest in the barn, and to be forced to turn out and drive so many miles through the dark, cold night was by no means a pleasant experience. But it had to be done, and so he sat huddled on the wagon seat, dozing fitfully, and comforting himself that the old horse knew the way much better than he knew it himself, when suddenly Pucker stopped dead, almost flinging Edgar from the driving seat, and arousing him from his dozing with a jerk.

“Steady, old man, steady!” he muttered, in that tone which is usually supposed to restore confidence to a horse troubled with nerves. But on Pucker this advice seemed a little thrown away and entirely unnecessary, as the creature was standing as if it had been planted there.

“What is up? Go on, can’t you,” said the driver, wondering if the horse were a jibber, and, if so, whether it would be his unfortunate lot to sit there for hours until it seemed good to Pucker to proceed.

But Pucker paid no heed to the admonition, and a jerk of the reins producing no other effect than to make him toss his head, Edgar decided that he would have to get down and investigate the business at close quarters.

“Steady, there!” he murmured encouragingly, as he unrolled himself from his various rugs and wrappings and then got slowly out of the wagon.

He was so stiff and cramped, that he stumbled and nearly fell, but, recovering himself with an effort, he went to the horse’s head, and by the light of the rising moon saw that a dark object was lying in the soft mud of the trail.

“A man! And if it had not been for the horse, I should have run over him!” he exclaimed aloud; and now there was a thrill of horror in his tone, for he had been far too sleepy to notice whether or not the trail was clear.

Leaving the horse, which had been too wise to trample on that prostrate figure, Edgar stooped over the man to investigate his condition.

“Tipsy? Hardly likely, for if he had been intoxicated when he left Pentland Broads, he would be sober by this time, or at least I think that I should be if I had managed to walk so far. He looks like a dead-beat, poor chap, and what on earth shall I do with him?”

Edgar stood straight up and gazed round in the darkness, as if in search of inspiration.

“Well, I’m going for the doctor, so the best thing I can do is to take the poor chap along too, if I can get him up in the wagon, that is. I must get him into the wagon, for it is certain that I cannot leave him lying out here while I go to get help.”

Stripping off his coat, and then peeling off the jacket which he wore below, Edgar set to work upon his task. And a frightfully hard task it was, too, for the unknown was bigger than he was himself, and it is likely that he never would have succeeded in getting him into the wagon at all, but for the fact that the man was wasted to a mere bag of bones, and so was the easier to haul about.

Once or twice the poor fellow groaned, as if in protest at the rough treatment which he was receiving, so Edgar knew that there was still life left in the man and persevered in his task, determined to get the poor fellow up somehow. Pucker stood like a post. Perhaps the old horse understood that there was life to be saved, and certain it was that Edgar’s task would have been much harder, and perhaps impossible, if the horse had been restive and anxious to get on; for there was not a post, or a stump, or indeed anything to tie an animal to, so that standing still was an act of grace on the part of the horse, and it helped to save a man’s life.

As soon as he had managed to get his unconscious passenger on board, Edgar slipped on his jacket, but took the brown coat to wrap round the unknown. Bertha’s scarf, however, he kept for himself, and the feel of it about his neck seemed to keep his heart warm. It was ugly, ragged, and old, but it had a magic property in it on this cold spring night, when the light of the moon came faintly through dense masses of clouds, which meant rain next day.

Would the man live until Pentland Broads was reached? The question beat itself out to a monotonous, dirge-like tune in the brain of Edgar as he drove along, and the clop, clop, clop of Pucker’s feet was the only sound that broke the stillness.

Night in the forest is rarely entirely quiet; there is sound and movement all the time, faint whisperings, stealthy creakings, and a suggestion of hidden life on every side. But on the open prairie there is none of this; it is a dense, brooding quiet, which may be literally felt, and it lay upon Edgar as a burden that was too heavy to be borne. Pentland Broads at last! The moon came out from behind the clouds to throw a flood of silvery radiance down upon the ugly houses which were grouped about the store, and the horse quickened its pace, as if understanding the need there was of haste in reaching the end of the journey.

One solitary light gleamed amid the cluster of sleeping dwellings, and that was at the house of the doctor, for which Edgar made a bee line, although he nearly upset the wagon, and must have given his unconscious passenger a cruel shaking, for he drove across a piece of ground which was being trenched for building purposes, and never realized that he was off the trail until he was so nearly upset. However, he got through safely, and, as he saved about ten minutes, the short cut had been well worth taking.

To spring down from the wagon and to bang at the doctor’s door was the work of a minute only, then came a brief period of acute anxiety lest the doctor should not be at home.

“Who is there? What do you want?” shouted a voice from the window hastily thrust open, and Edgar found to his great disgust that his own voice was not entirely steady when he answered:

“I want you to come out to Duck Flats to see an old man who seems to be dying, but as I was coming for you I nearly drove over another man, a dead-beat apparently, and I brought him along with me. You will have to look after him first, for he seems in a bad way, I can tell you.”

“I’ll be out in three minutes,” growled the doctor, in no very pleased tone, then he banged the window, and Edgar was left to wait through an interminable three minutes, which seemed to him to be at least half an hour, so impatient was he about the condition of the man in the wagon.

Then the door opened, and the doctor bustled out, as neat and trim of appearance as if he had been sitting up waiting for patients to come, instead of having been in bed sound asleep less than five minutes before.

“Now, then, what is wrong?” he said, bustling round to the end of the wagon, and peering at the figure which lay wrapped in the brown topcoat. “You are right, he does look in need of some attention. We shall have to carry him indoors. My word, but he is a fine lump of a man, though he is only a bag of bones. How did you manage to get him into the wagon, if he was senseless when you picked him up?”

“I dragged him up somehow. I could not have done it if the horse had not stood, as it were, planted in the ground and had taken root there. As it was, I had my work cut out, for the poor fellow is bigger than I am,” panted Edgar, as he and the doctor lifted the man from the wagon and carried him indoors to the light.

“Well, I never!” exclaimed the doctor, in a tone of pure amazement, as he surveyed his new patient by the light of the lamp.

“Is he dead?” asked Edgar, in a tone of deep disappointment, for it seemed too bad to have had to work so hard and then not be able to save the man after all.

“Dead! Good gracious, I hope not!” cried the doctor, beginning to work at the poor fellow in feverish haste. “Why, man, it is Tom Ellis himself, the owner of Duck Flats, and there are women and children there who will love you all your life for what you have done to-night!”

It was more than a week later before Tom Ellis was well enough to be carried to his home at Duck Flats, and by that time everyone knew all that there was to be known of his wonderful escape from death.

When the supplies ran short, and the Expedition, unable to find their cache, were faced with starvation, the members drew lots for two of them to take the risk of working their way back, through the constantly recurring blizzards and over the wide stretches of trackless country, to the nearest point of civilization, whence help could be obtained. The lots fell to Tom Ellis and the brother of Eunice Long, and when they started they believed that they were going to certain death, but the lot had fallen to them and it was their duty to go.

So many times death stared them in the face, that it was like a miracle they did not perish on the way. The poor man Long had to be left at the first Indian encampment upon which they chanced, for he was so badly frost-bitten that he could not stand upon his feet. From that time Tom Ellis had to press on alone; then he fell into a wolf trap set by an Indian, from which he was fished out more dead than alive, and he lay for weeks too ill to remember the errand on which he set out, and he must have died but for the kindness and the care of the wild people, who were hard pressed themselves for food.

As soon as he was able to walk he set out again, but the very first point of civilization which he reached was an outlying settlement, where the news had been first carried of the disaster which had overtaken the Expedition, and then he knew that he had failed. The knowledge was so bitter, that at the first he was ready to lie down and die from sheer despair at having failed. But the thought of his helpless wife and the little children waiting for him at home spurred him on to make the final effort necessary to get home, and when he had rested a little he set forth again; but it is certain that he would never have reached home alive, had it not been for Edgar Bradgate having to fetch the doctor in the middle of the night, when the horse found his prostrate body lying in the middle of the trail.

Great was the rejoicing at Pentland Broads when it was found that both Tom Ellis and the brother of Eunice Long were alive. Young Semple and the red-haired Fricker set off for the Indian encampment to bring home Mr. Long; but for the present Eunice stayed on at Duck Flats, and left the nursing of Tom Ellis to the doctor’s housekeeper, for death had come to the solitary little house in the wheatfields, and Bertha could not be left alone at such a time.

Uncle Joe had never recovered consciousness, but had slipped out of life immediately after the doctor’s arrival, so he never knew the joyful news of which the doctor was the bearer on that bright spring morning.

If there was no real grief, but only gentle regret for the old man who had hastened his own end by the violence of his passions, that was surely more his own fault than that of anyone else, since it is open to everyone who comes into this world to earn love and to keep it. They were sorry for him, but there was no sense of loss—the bitter feeling of emptiness which constitutes real grief.

He was laid to rest in the bare little burying ground at the back of the meeting house, while Edgar Bradgate and Bertha were the chief mourners, because there was no one else to stand in that position. Poor Tom was too ill to be told anything about it, and Grace, of course, was not fit for the exertion of following anyone to the grave, because she could not as yet stand upon her feet. One thing, however, she insisted upon, and that was that she should be carried over to Pentland Broads to see her husband, and although the journey must have shaken her very much, the joy of being with him again was so great that it did her more good than harm.

It was Edgar Bradgate who drove the pair of them back over the rough trail to their home as soon as the doctor would allow Tom to be moved, and, as the long miles had to be covered at a pace which would not shake the two invalids unduly, it was not wonderful that the talk which was indulged in grew very intimate and confidential before the end of the journey was reached.

Edgar told them that he wanted to marry Bertha, but that he dared not ask her because he had discovered the fact of her writing, and he feared that a girl with a literary future before her would not care to tie herself to a poor man.

“Still it is not fair to Bertha that she should not have the chance of doing what she pleased,” said Grace, while a flush of colour rose in her pale cheeks.

“What do you mean?” asked Edgar, leaning down a little nearer to Grace, who sat propped up in a funny, old easy chair behind the driving seat.

“I mean that if Bertha happens to care for you, it is rather hard on her that she should never have a chance of choosing happiness with you, and all because she has made the very best use of the gift that was in her,” Grace answered, in a spirited tone.

“Do you think——?” began Edgar, with a gleam of hope lighting up his eyes, which were apt to look a little sombre.

“I don’t think anything, and I would not tell you if I did,” Grace replied crossly. “I only say that if you care for Bertha, as you say that you do, it is your duty to tell her so.”

“And to get flouted for my pains, maybe,” said Edgar moodily.

“If you have such a poor opinion of Bertha as to think that she could be guilty of such meanness, your love cannot be worth much,” retorted Grace.

“Don’t be too hard on him, wife. I have felt very much the same myself in days gone by,” said Tom, with a laugh, and then he began to talk of the advisability of sowing oats and potatoes, as well as wheat, for the next harvest, and the conversation did not come near matters purely personal again during the remainder of that long, slow drive.

It was a week later still when a letter came from Hilda which contained tidings of importance for Bertha. Hilda was intending to sail for Australia, where, with her European training fresh upon her, she intended setting up for herself in Adelaide. She wanted to have a home of her own, and she was quite positive that she could soon get a teaching connection large enough to support herself and Bertha, and with Anne only fifty miles away, it would be almost like the old days at Mestlebury over again. So she begged that Bertha would give up her position as hired girl in Cousin Tom’s household and come to Australia without delay.

“What cool impudence, to call you a hired girl!” growled Tom, who had long ago taken quite an unreasonable prejudice against bright, capable Hilda.

“Bertha would certainly have more time for her own work, and an easier life altogether, in living with Hilda,” put in Grace; but to this Bertha made no reply, as she took the pail and went out to milk the cow.

She was feeling miserably depressed, although in reality she ought to have been very happy indeed, seeing that some, at least, of the tangles had been smoothed out of her path.

By the very same mail which had brought Hilda’s letter, a communication had been received from the lawyer engaged in winding up the estate of Tom’s Uncle Joe, stating that the old man had left a brief will behind him, in which everything he possessed was left to his dear nephew, Thomas Ellis; so there would be no more straitened means for the household at Duck Flats, and it was very certain that they would not forget their past indebtedness to her for standing by them so bravely in their troubles.

“Bah! As if money were everything!” she exclaimed, with almost spiteful emphasis, as she rose from her stool, and then she blushed a furious red as Edgar Bradgate entered the barn.

“Where have you sprung from? I thought that you were at Rownton,” she said, in surprise.

“I have been even farther than that, for I have just come from Gilbert Plains,” he answered, and then he went on, “And I have had some work offered to me at last, really responsible work, I mean, which is one of the good things resulting from having a character once more.”

“Are you going to take it?” she asked.

“That is what I was coming to ask you,” he replied. “Having a prospect at last of being able to keep a wife makes me bold enough to ask for what I want, and as I would rather marry you than be President of the United States, or any equally exalted office, it is for you to say whether I can take this post and be happy.”

The colour went flaming over Bertha’s face as she placed the milk-pail on the ground and stood looking at him, as if in actual doubt of his meaning, although his words had been plain enough. Then a light of dancing mischief came in her eyes, and she asked demurely—

“And if I say no?”

His face fell, and he winced visibly, though his voice was very quiet as he replied: “In that case I must be outcast again, but with this difference, that now I shall have no hope left, and in the worst of my troubles hope never failed me before.”

But Bertha had already repented of her teasing, and, slipping her hand into his, murmured softly—

“And it need not fail you now.”

Hilda was dreadfully disappointed to find that Bertha was not coming to keep house for her in Adelaide, while Anne wrote long letters protesting that Bertha was too much of a baby to think of getting married yet for years to come. But when Tom, at the instigation of Grace, wrote to them of the tremendous changes which had taken place in Bertha, and the capable manner in which she had borne herself through crises which might well have tried the nerves of a much older person, the elder sisters decided that she was at last able to take her own way, and to choose her own lot for herself.

The case of diamonds, which had given so much trouble and anxiety to Bertha, was sold to an American millionaire, something in shoe blacking he was, and they realized the two hundred thousand dollars which the old man had said that they were worth. Some of the money went to provide Grace with the best medical skill the Dominion could supply, another portion was set aside as a wedding gift to Bertha, and some of the remainder went in building a more commodious house at Duck Flats; for nothing would induce Tom Ellis to leave the prairie which he so dearly loved.

Bertha protested at the size of the gift which was to be hers when she married, but Grace stopped her, saying, with a laugh which bordered closely on tears—

“But for you, dear, there had been no money at all, for Uncle Joe’s affairs are so hopelessly involved, and he has muddled so much money away in foolish speculation, that when it is wound up his estate will only just about clear itself.”

“That is all the more reason why you should keep the money, and it is no virtue of mine that I took care of the stones, seeing that I supposed them to be another man’s, and only waited for the chance of restoring them to him. It is not a virtue to be honest,” Bertha repeated, with emphasis.

“I think that it must be, seeing that it is a vice to be dishonest,” said Grace, as she leaned her head against Bertha’s shoulder. “But if it had not been for you and your brave doing of hard and unpleasant duty, I should not have been here at all. I could not have struggled through all that long, hard time of helplessness if it had not been for you. It was because of you, and what you did for me, that I kept my hold on hope, and it was hope that saved my life.”

“And if it had not been for you I should never have had the courage to do anything at all,” replied Bertha. “And, Grace, that Boston firm has written to say that they will undertake my book and bring it out next fall, and that would certainly never have been written if it had not been for you, so the burden of indebtedness is about even.”

Then Grace quoted softly the words from Holy Writ—