Thurston of Orchard Valley

The two men's fingers met in a grip that was more eloquent than many protestations, and Geoffrey went out into the moaning wind and, bareheaded, paced to and fro until he was summoned to the sick man's room. The few days that had passed since he had seen his employer had set their mark upon Savine. The sick man lay in his plainly-furnished room. With bloodless lips, drawn face, and curiously-glazed eyes, he was strangely different from his usual self, but he looked up with an attempt at his characteristic smile as Geoffrey approached. At a signal, the nurse slipped away.

"I asked them to tell you, so you might know the kind of man I am," said Savine. "You have got to exercise that partnership option one way or another right now. It is not too late to back out, and I wouldn't blame you."

"I should blame myself to my last day if I did, sir," answered Geoffrey, trying to hide the shock he felt, and Savine beckoned him nearer.

"It's a big thing you are going into, but you'll do it with both eyes wide open," he declared. "For the past few years Julius Savine has been a shadow, and an empty name, and his affairs are mixed considerably. Reckless contracts taken with a muddled brain and speculation to make up the losses, have, between them, resulted in chaos. I'm too sick to value what I own, and no accountant can. I ran things myself too long, and no one was fit to take hold when I slackened my grip. But there's still the business, and there's still the name, and the one man in this province I can trust them to is you. I should have let go before, but I was greedy – greedy for my daughter's sake."

"It is comprehensible." Geoffrey spoke with conviction. "So far as I can serve you, you can command me."

"I know it," was the answer. "What's more, I feel it in me that you will not lose by it. Lord, how hard it is, but there's no use whining when brought up sharp by one's own folly. But see here, Geoffrey Thurston, if Helen will take you willingly I can trust her to you; but if, when I go under, she looks beyond you, and you attempt to trade upon her gratitude or her aunt's favor, my curse will follow you. Besides, if I know Helen Savine, she will be able to repay you full measure should you win her so."

For just a moment the old flame of quick anger burned in Geoffrey's eyes. Then he responded.

"I regret you even imagine I could take an dishonorable advantage of your daughter. God forbid that I should ever bring sorrow upon Miss Savine. All I ask is a fair field and the right to help her according to her need."

"Forgive me!" returned Savine. "Of late I have grown scared about her future. I believe you, Thurston; I can't say more. I felt the more sure of you when you told me straight out about what was born in you. Lord, how I envied you! The man who can stand those devils off can do most anything. It was when my wife died they got their claws on me. I was trying to forget my troubles by doing three men's work, but you can't fool with nature, and I'd done it too long already. Anyway, when I couldn't eat or sleep, they had their opportunity. At first they made my brain work quicker, but soon after I fell in with you I knew that, unless he had a good man beside him, Savine's game was over. But I wouldn't be beaten. I was holding on for Helen's sake to leave her a fortune and a name.

"All this is getting monotonous to you but let me finish when I can." Savine waited a moment to regain his breath. "I cheated the nurse and doctor to-day, and I'll be very like a dead man to-morrow. You must go down to my offices and overhaul everything; then come right back and we'll see if we can make a deal. I'll have my proposition fixed up straight and square, but this is the gist of it. While doing your best for your own advantage, hold Julius Savine's name clean before the world, win the most possible for Helen out of the wreck, and rush through the reclamation scheme – which is the key to all."

"As you said – it's a big undertaking, but I'll do my best," began Geoffrey, but Savine checked him.

"Go down and see what you make of things. Maybe the sight of them will choke you off. I'll take no other answer. Send Tom to me," he commanded.

It was the next day when Geoffrey had an interview with Helen, who sent for him. She was standing beside a window when he came in. She looked tall in a long somber-tinted dress which emphasized the whiteness of her full round throat and the pallor of her face. The faint, olive coloring of her skin had faded; there were shadows about her eyes. At the first glance Geoffrey's heart went out towards her. It was evident the verdict of the physicians had been a heavy shock, but he fancied that she was ready to meet the inevitable with undiminished courage. Still, her fingers were cold when, for a moment, they touched his own.

"Sit down, Geoffrey. I have a great deal to say to you, and don't know how to begin," she said. "But first I am sincerely grateful for all you have done."

"We will not mention that. Neither, I hope, need I say that Miss Savine of all people could never be indebted to me. You must know it already."

Helen thanked him with her eyes as she sank into the chair he wheeled out so that the light left her face in shadow. Geoffrey stood near the window framing and he did not look directly towards her. Helen appreciated the consideration which prompted the action and the respect implied by his attitude.

"I am going to ask a great deal of you, and remind you of a promise you once made." There was a little tremor in her voice. "You will not think it ungracious if I say there is no one else who can do what seems so necessary, and ask you if you do not consider that you owe something to my father. It is hard for me, not because I doubt you, but because – "

Geoffrey checked her with a half-raised hand. "Please don't, Miss Savine – I can understand. You find it difficult to receive, when, as yet, you have, you think, but little to give. Would that make any difference? The little – just to know that I had helped you – would be so much to me."

Again Helen was grateful. The look of anxiety and distress returned as she went on.

"I dare spare no effort for my father's sake. He has always been kindness itself to me, and it is only now that I know how much I love him. Hitherto I have taken life too easily, forgetting that sorrow and tragedy could overtake me. I have heard the physician's verdict, and know my father cannot be spared very long to me. I also know how his mind is set upon the completion of his last great scheme. That is why, and because of your promise, I have dared ask help of – you."

"Will it make it easier if I say that, quite apart from his daughter's wishes, I am bound in honor to protect the interests of Julius Savine so far as I can?" interposed Geoffrey. "Your father found me much as you did, a struggling adventurer, and with unusual kindness helped me on the way to prosperity. All I have I owe to him, and perhaps, the more so because we have cunning enemies, my own mind is bent on the completion of the scheme. I believe that we shall triumph, Miss Savine, and I use the word advisedly, still expecting much from your father's skill."

Helen gravely shook her head. "I recognize your kind intentions, but you must expect nothing. It is a hard thing for me to say, but the truth is always best, and again it is no small favor I ask from you, – to do the work for the credit of another's name – taking his task upon your shoulders, to make a broken man's last days easier. I want you to sign the new partnership agreement, and am glad you recognize that my father was a good friend to you."

The girl's courage nearly deserted her, for Helen was young still, and had been severely tried. While Geoffrey, who felt that he would give his life for the right to comfort her, could only discreetly turn his face away.

"I will do it all, Miss Savine," he said gravely. "I had already determined on as much, but you must try to believe that the future is not so hopeless as it looks. You will consider that I have given you a solemn pledge."

"Then I can only say God speed you, for my thanks would be inadequate," Helen's voice trembled as she spoke. "But I must also ask your forgiveness for my presumption in judging you that day. I now know how far I was mistaken."

Geoffrey knew to what she referred. The day had been a memorable one for him, and, with pulses throbbing, he moved forward a pace, his eyes fixed upon the speaker's face. For a moment, forgetting everything, his resolutions were flung to the winds, and he trembled with passion and hope. Then he remembered his promise to the sick man, and Helen's own warning, and recovered a partial mastery of himself. It was a mere sense of justice which prompted the girl's words, his reason warned him, but he felt, instinctively, that they implied more than this, though he did not know how much. He stood irresolute until Helen looked up, and, if it had ever existed, the time for speech was past.

"I fear I have kept you too long, but there is still a question I must ask. You have seen my father in many of his moods, and there is something in the state of limp apathy he occasionally falls into which puzzles me. I cannot help thinking there is another danger of which I do not know. Can you not enlighten me?"

Helen leaned forward, a strange fear stamped upon her face. Fresh from the previous struggle, Geoffrey, whose heart yearned to comfort her, felt his powers of resistance strained to the utmost. Still, it was a question that he could not answer. Remembering Savine's injunction – to hold her father's name clean – he said quickly: "There is nothing I can tell you. You must remember only that the physician admitted a cheering possibility."

"I will try to believe in it." The trouble deepened in Helen's face, while her voice expressed bitter disappointment. "You have been very kind and I must not tax you too heavily."

Geoffrey turned away, distressed, for her and inwardly anathematized his evil fortune in being asked that particular question. He had, he felt, faltered when almost within sight of victory, neglecting to press home an advantage which might have won success. "It is, perhaps, the first time I have willfully thrown away my chances – the man who wins is the one who sees nothing but the prize," he told himself. "But I could not have taken advantage of her anxiety for her father and gratitude to me, while, if I had, and won, there would be always between us the knowledge that I had not played the game fairly."

Thomas Savine came into the room. "I was looking for you, and want to know when you'll go down to Vancouver with me to puzzle through everything before finally deciding just what you're going to do," he said. They talked a few moments. After the older man left him, Geoffrey found himself confronted by Mrs. Savine.

"I have been worried about you," she asserted. "You're carrying too heavy a load, and it's wearing you thin. You look a very sick man to-day, and ought to remember that the main way to preserve one's health is to take life easily."

"I have no doubt of it, madam," Thurston fidgeted, fearing what might follow; "but, unfortunately, one cannot always do so."

Mrs. Savine held out a little phial as she explained: "A simple restorative is the next best thing, and you will find yourself braced in mind and body by a few doses of this. It is what I desired to fix up my poor brother-in-law with when you prevented me."

"Then the least I can do is to take it myself," said Geoffrey, smiling to hide his uneasiness. "I presume you do not wish me to swallow it immediately?"

Mrs. Savine beamed upon him. "You might hold out an hour or two longer, but delays are dangerous," she warned him. "Kindness! Well, there's a tolerable reason why we should be good to you, and, for I guess you're not a clever man all round, Geoffrey Thurston, you have piled up a considerable obligation in your favor in one direction."

"May I ask you to speak more plainly, Mrs. Savine?" Geoffrey requested and she answered:

"You may, but I can't do it. Still, what you did, because you thought it the fair thing, won't be lost to you. Now, don't ask any more fool questions, but go right away, take ten drops of the elixir, and don't worry. It will all come right some day."

The speaker's meaning was discernible, and Geoffrey, having a higher opinion than many people of Mrs. Savine's sagacity, went out into the sunlight, satisfied. He held up the phial and was about to hurl it among the firs, but, either grateful for the donor's words, or softened by what he had heard and seen, he actually drank a little of it instead. Then came a revulsion from the strain of the last few days, and he burst into a laugh.

"It would have been mean, and I dare say I haven't absorbed sufficient of the stuff to quite poison me," he said.

CHAPTER XVI

MILLICENT TURNS TRAITRESS

It was with a heavy sense of responsibility that Geoffrey returned from a visit to Savine's offices in Vancouver, and yet there was satisfaction mingled with his anxiety. Thomas Savine, who knew little of engineering, was no fool at finance, and the week they spent together made the situation comparatively plain. It was fraught with peril and would have daunted many a man, but the very uncertainty and prospect of a struggle which would tax every energy appealed to Thurston. He felt also that here was an opportunity of proving his devotion to Helen in the way he could do it best.

"I'm uncommonly thankful we didn't send for an accountant; the fewer folks who handle those books the better," declared Thomas Savine. "I was prepared for a surprise, Thurston, but never expected this. I suppose things can be straightened out, but when I'd fixed up that balance, it just took my breath away. More than half the assets are unmarketable stock and ventures no man could value, while whether they will ever realize anything goodness only knows. It's mighty certain Julius doesn't know himself what he has been doing the last two years. I can let my partners run our business down in Oregon and stay right here for a time, counting on you to do the outside work, if what you have seen hasn't clicked you off. You haven't signed the agreement yet. How does the whole thing strike you?"

"As chaos that can and must be reduced to order," answered Geoffrey with a reckless laugh. "I intend to sign the agreement, and, foreseeing that you may have trouble about the money which I propose to spend freely, I am adding all my private savings to the working capital. It is, therefore, neck or nothing with me now, as I fear it is with the rest of you, and, in my opinion, we should let everything but the reclamation scheme go. It will either ruin us or pay us five-fold if we can put it through."

"Just so!" and Savine nodded. "I leave that end to you, but I've got to explain things to Helen, and I don't like the thought of it. My niece has talents. As her future lies at stake, she has a right to know, but it will be another shock to her. Poor Julius brought her up in luxury, and I expect has been far too mixed of late to know that he was tottering towards the verge of bankruptcy. A smart outside accountant would have soon scented trouble, but I don't quite blame my brother's cashier, who is a clerk and nothing more, for taking everything at its book value."

That afternoon Helen sat with the two men in the library at High Maples. A roll of papers was on the table before her. When Thomas Savine had made the condition of things as plain as possible, she leaned back in her chair with crossed hands for a time.

"I thank you for telling me so much, and I can grasp the main issues," she said at length. "If my opinion is of value I would say I agree with you that the bold course is best. But you will need much money, and as it is evident money will not be plentiful, so I must do my part in helping you. Because this establishment and our mode of life here is expensive, while it will please my father to be near the scene of operations, we will let High Maples and retire to a mountain ranch. I fear we have maintained a style circumstances hardly justified too long."

"It's a sensible plan all through. I must tell you Mr. Thurston has – " began Savine, and ceased abruptly, when Geoffrey, who frowned at him, broke in:

"We have troubled Miss Savine with sufficient details, and I fancy the arrangement suggested would help to keep her father tranquil, especially as our progress will be slow. Spring is near, and, in spite of our efforts, we shall not be able to deepen the pass in the cañon before the waters rise. That means we can do nothing there until next winter, and must continue the dyking all summer. It is very brave of you, Miss Savine."