"Other things!" said French bitterly. "True, there are, and great things, but, Kalman, boy, I have tried them, and to-night after thirty years, as I speak to you--my God!--my heart is sick of hunger for something better than things! Love! my boy, love is the best!"
"Poor Jack!" said Kalman softly, "dear old boy!" and went out. But of that hunger of the heart they never spoke again.
And now at the end of five years' absence she was coming again.
How vivid to Kalman was his remembrance of the last sight he had of her. It was at the Night Hawk ranch, and on the night succeeding that of the tragedy at the mine. In the inner room, beside his father's body, he was sitting, his mind busy with the tragic pathos of that grief-tortured, storm-beaten life. Step by step, as far as he knew it, he was tracing the tear-wet, blood-stained path that life had taken; its dreadful scenes of blood and heart agony were passing before his mind; when gradually he became aware that in the next room the Sergeant, with bluff and almost brutal straightforwardness, was telling her the story of Rosenblatt's dreadful end. "And then, begad! after grilling the wretch for all that time, didn't the infernal, bloodthirsty fiend in the most cheerful manner touch off the powder and blow the man into eternity." Then through the thin partition he heard her faint cry of horror. He remembered how, at the Sergeant's description of his father, something seemed to go wrong in his brain. He had a dim remembrance of how, dazed with rage, he had felt his way out to the next room, and cried, "You defamer of the dead! you will lie no more!" He had a vivid picture of how in horror she had fled from him while he dragged out the Sergeant by the throat into the night, and how he had been torn from him by the united efforts of Brown and French together. He remembered how, after the funeral service, when he had grown master of himself again, he had offered the Sergeant his humble apology before them all. But most vivid of all was his memory of the look of fear and repulsion in her eyes when he came near her. And that was the last look he had had of her.
Gladly would he have run away from meeting her again; but this he could not do, for Jack's sake and for his own. Carefully he rehearsed the scene, what he would say, and how he would carry himself with what rigid self-control and with what easy indifference he would greet her.
But the meeting was quite other than he had planned. It was at the mine. One shiny September morning the heavy cars were just starting down the incline to the mine below, when through the carelessness of the operator the brake of the great drum slipped, and on being applied again with reckless force, broke, and the car was off, bringing destruction to half a dozen men at the bottom of the shaft. Quick as a flash of light, Kalman sprang to the racing cog wheels, threw in a heavy coat that happened to be lying near, and then, as the machinery slowed, thrust in a handspike and checked the descent of the runaway car. It took less than two seconds to see, to plan, to execute.
"Great work!" exclaimed a voice behind him.
He turned and saw Sir Robert Menzies, and between him and French, his daughter Marjorie.
"Glad to see you, Sir Robert," he exclaimed heartily.
"That was splendid!" said his daughter, pale and shaken by what she had seen.
One keen searching look he thrust in through her eyes, scanning her soul. Bravely, frankly, she gave him back his look. Kalman drew a deep breath. It was as if he had been on a long voyage of discovery, how long he could not tell. But what he had seen brought comfort to his heart. She had not shrunk from him.
"That was fine!" cried Marjorie again, offering him her hand.
"I am afraid," he said, holding back his, "that my hand is not clean enough to shake with you."
"Give it to me," she said almost imperiously. "It is the hand of a brave man and good."
Her tone was one of warm and genuine admiration. All Kalman's practised self-control deserted him. He felt the hot blood rising in his face. With a great effort he regained command of himself and began pointing out the features of interest in the mine.
"Great changes have taken place in the last five years," she said, looking down the ravine, disfigured by all the sordid accompaniments of a coal mine.
"Yes, great changes," said Kalman.
"At Wakota, too, there are great changes," she said, walking a little apart from the others. "That Mr. Brown has done wonderful things for those foreigners."
"Yes," said Kalman proudly, "he has done great things for my people."
"They are becoming good Canadians," replied Marjorie, her colour showing that she had noted his tone and meaning.
"Yes, they will be good Canadians," said Kalman. "They are good Canadians now. They are my best men. None can touch them in the mine, and they are good farmers too."
"I am sure they are," cried Marjorie heartily. "How wonderful the power of this country of yours to transform men! It is a wonderful country Canada."
"That it is," cried Kalman with enthusiasm. "No man can tell, for no man knows the magnificence of its possibilities. We have only skirted round the edge and scratched its surface."
"It is a fine thing," said Marjorie, "to have a country to be made, and it is fine to be a man and have a part in the ****** of it."
"Yes," agreed Kalman, "it is fine."
"I envy you," cried Marjorie with enthusiasm.
A shadow fell on Kalman's face. "I don't know that you need to, after all."
