The Impostor

Courthorne nodded. “Still, I fancy one of the conditions could be modified. Now, if I wait for another three months I may be dead before the reckoning comes, and while that probably wouldn’t grieve you, I could, when it appeared advisable, send for a magistrate and make a deposition.”

“You could,” said Witham. “I have, however, something of the same kind in contemplation.”

Courthorne smiled curiously. “I don’t know that it will be necessary. Carry me on until you have sold your crop, and then make a reasonable offer, and it’s probable you may still keep what you have at Silverdale. To be quite frank, I’ve a notion that my time in this world is tolerably limited, and I want a last taste of all it has to offer a man of my capacities before I leave it. One is a long while dead, you know.”

Witham nodded, for he understood. He had also during the grim cares of the lean years known the fierce longing for one deep draught of the wine of pleasure, whatever it afterwards cost him.

“It was that which induced you to look for a little relaxation at the settlement at my expense,” he said. “A trifle paltry, wasn’t it?”

Courthorne laughed. “It seems you don’t know me yet. That was a frolic, indulged in out of humour, for your benefit. You see, your rôle demanded a good deal more ability than you ever displayed in it, and it did not seem fitting that a very puritanical and priggish person should pose as me at Silverdale. The little affair was the one touch of verisimilitude about the thing. No doubt my worthy connexions are grieving over your lapse.”

“My sense of humour had never much chance of developing,” said Witham grimly. “What is the matter with you?”

“Pulmonary haemorrhage!” said Courthorne. “Perhaps it was born in me, but I never had much trouble until after that night in the snow at the river. Would you care to hear about it? We’re not fond of each other, but after the steer-drivers I’ve been herding with, it’s a relief to talk to a man of moderate intelligence.”

“Go on,” said Witham.

“Well,” said Courthorne, “when the trooper was close behind me, my horse went through the ice, but somehow I crawled out. We were almost across the river, and it was snowing fast, while I had a fancy that I might have saved the horse but, as the trooper would probably have seen a mounted man, I let him go. The stream sucked him under, and, though you may not believe it, I felt very mean when I saw nothing but the hole in the ice. Then, as the troopers didn’t seem inclined to cross, I went on through the snow, and, as it happened, blundered across Jardine’s old shanty. There was still a little prairie hay in the place, and I lay in it until morning, dragging fresh armfuls around me as I burnt it in the stove. Did you ever spend a night, wet through, in a place that was ten to twenty under freezing?”

“Yes,” said Witham dryly. “I have done it twice.”

“Well,” said Courthorne, “I fancy that night narrowed in my life for me, but I made out across the prairie in the morning, and as we had a good many friends up and down the country, one of them took care of me.”

Witham sat silent a while. The story had held his attention, and the frankness of the man who lay panting a little in his chair had its effect on him. There was no sound from the prairie, and the house was very still.

“Why did you kill Shannon?” he asked at length.

“Is any one quite sure of his motives?” said Courthorne. “The lad had done something which was difficult to forgive him, but I think I would have let him go if he hadn’t recognized me. The world is tolerably good to the man who has no scruples, you see, and I took all it offered me, while it did not seem fitting that a clod of a trooper without capacity for enjoyment, or much more sensibility than the beast he rode, should put an end to all my opportunities. Still, it was only when he tried to warn his comrades he threw his last chance away.”

Witham shivered a little at the dispassionate brutality of the speech, and then checked the anger that came upon him.

“Fate, or my own folly, has put it out of my power to denounce you without abandoning what I have set my heart upon, and after all it is not my business,” he said. “I will give you five hundred dollars and you can go to Chicago or Montreal, and consult a specialist. If the money is exhausted before I send for you, I will pay your hotel bills, but every dollar will be deducted when we come to the reckoning.”

Courthorne laughed a little. “You had better make it seven-fifty. Five hundred dollars will not go very far with me.”

“Then you will have to husband them,” said Witham dryly. “I am paying you at a rate agreed upon for the use of your land and small bank balance handed me, and want all of it. The rent is a fair one in face of the fact that a good deal of the farm consisted of virgin prairie, which can be had from the Government for nothing.”

He said nothing further, and soon after he went out Courthorne went to sleep, but Witham sat by an open window with a burned-out cigar in his hand, staring at the prairie while the night wore through, until he rose with a shiver in the chill of early morning to commence his task again.

A few days later he saw Courthorne safely into a sleeping car with a ticket for Chicago in his pocket, and felt that a load had been lifted off his shoulders when the train rolled out of the little prairie station. Another week had passed, when, riding home one evening, he stopped at the Grange, and, as it happened, found Maud Barrington alone. She received him without any visible restraint, but he realized that all that had passed at their last meeting was to be tacitly ignored.

“Has your visitor recovered yet?” she asked.

“So far as to leave my place, and I was not anxious to keep him,” said Witham with a little laugh. “I am sorry he disturbed you.”

Maud Barrington seemed thoughtful. “I can scarcely think the man was to blame.”

“No?” said Witham.

The girl looked at him curiously, and shook her head. “No,” she said. “I heard my uncle’s explanation, but it was not convincing. I saw the man’s face.”

It was several seconds before Witham answered, and then he took the bold course.

“Well?” he said.

Maud Barrington made a curious little gesture. “I knew I had seen it before at the bridge, but that was not all. It was vaguely familiar, and I felt I ought to know it. It reminded me of somebody.”

“Of me?” and Witham laughed.

“No. There was a resemblance, but it was very superficial. That man’s face had little in common with yours.”

“These faint likenesses are not unusual,” said Witham, and once more Maud Barrington looked at him steadily.

“No,” she said. “Of course not. Well, we will conclude that my fancies ran away with me, and be practical. What is wheat doing just now?”

“Rising still,” said Witham, and regretted the alacrity with which he had seized the opportunity of changing the topic when he saw that it had not escaped the notice of his companion. “You and I and a few others will be rich this year.”

“Yes, but I am afraid some of the rest will find it has only further anxieties for them.”

“I fancy,” said Witham, “you are thinking of one.”

Maud Barrington nodded. “Yes; I am sorry for him.”

“Then it would please you if I tried to straighten out things for him? It would be difficult, but I believe it could be accomplished.”

Maud Barrington’s eyes were grateful, but there was something that Witham could not fathom behind her smile.

“If you undertook it. One could almost believe you had the wonderful lamp,” she said.

Witham smiled somewhat dryly. “Then all its virtues will be tested to-night, and I had better make a commencement while I have the courage. Colonel Barrington is in?”

Maud Barrington went with him to the door, and then laid her hand a moment on his arm. “Lance,” she said, with a little tremor in her voice, “if there was a time when our distrust hurt you, it has recoiled upon our heads. You have returned it with a splendid generosity.”

Witham did not trust himself to answer, but walked straight to Barrington’s room, and finding the door open went quietly in. The head of the Silverdale settlement was sitting at a littered table in front of a shaded lamp, and the light that fell upon it showed the care in his face. It grew a trifle grimmer when he saw the younger man.

“Will you sit down?” he said. “I have been looking for a visit from you for some little time. It would have been more fitting had you made it earlier.”

Witham nodded as he took a chair. “I fancy I understand you, but I have nothing that you expect to hear to tell you, sir.”

“That,” said Barrington, “is unfortunate. Now, it is not my business to pose as a censor on the conduct of any man here, except when it affects the community, but their friends have sent out a good many young English lads, some of whom have not been too discreet in the old country, to me. They did not do so solely that I might teach them farming. A charge of that kind is no light responsibility, and I look for assistance from the men who have almost as large a stake as I have in the prosperity of Silverdale.”

“Have you ever seen me do anything you could consider prejudicial to it?” asked Witham.

“I have not,” said Colonel Barrington.

“And it was by her own wish Miss Barrington, who, I fancy, is seldom mistaken, asked me to the Grange?”

“Is is a good plea,” said Barrington. “I cannot question anything my sister does.”