Chapter 33 - Page 2

somehow,--that lass o' Lowrie's. Yo'd wonder if yo' could see her wi' 'em. She's mony a bit o' help to me."

But as time progressed, Anice Barholm noted the constant presence of that worn look upon her face. Instead of diminishing, it grew and deepened. Even Derrick, who met her so rarely, saw it when he passed her in the street.

"She is not ill, is she?" he asked Anice once, abruptly.

Anice shook her head.

"No, she is not ill."

"Then she has some trouble that nobody knows about," he said. "What a splendid creature she is!" impetuously--"and how incomprehensible!"

His eyes chanced to meet Anice's, and a dark flush swept over his face. He got up almost immediately after and began to pace the room, as was his habit.

"Next week the crisis will come at the mines," he said. "I wonder how it will end for me."

"You are still determined?" said Anice.

"Yes, I am still determined. I wish it were over. Perhaps there will be a Fate in it"--his voice lowering itself as he added this last sentence.

"A Fate?" said Anice.

"I am growing superstitious and full of fancies," he said. "I do not trust to myself, as I once did. I should like Fate to bear the responsibility of my leaving Riggan or remaining in it."

"And if you leave it?" asked Anice.

For an instant he paused in his walk, with an uncertain air. But he shook this uncertainty off with a visible effort, the next moment.

"If I leave it, I do not think I shall return, and Fate will have settled a long unsettled question for me."

"Don't leave it to Fate," said Anice in a low tone. "Settle it for yourself. It does not--it is not--it looks----"

"It looks cowardly," he interrupted her. "So it does, and so it is. God knows I never felt myself so great a coward before!"

He had paused again. This time he stood before her. The girl's grave, delicate face turned to meet his glance and seeing it, a thought seemed to strike him.

"Anice," he said, the dark flush rising afresh. "I promised you that if the time should ever come when I needed help that it was possible you might give, I should not be afraid to ask you for it. I am coming to you for help. Not now--some day not far distant. That is why I remind you of the compact."

"I did not need reminding," she said to him.

"I might have known that," he answered,--"I think I did know it But let us make the compact over again."

She held out her hand to him, and he took it eagerly.