The older woman was already gazing at her through troubled eyes.

“It is a shame and a mistake to keep you so in ignorance!” she broke out, “and I have said so always.  There are many things you have the right to know, although some of them would make you very unhappy—­as they do all of us poor women who have to live in this land of dread.  But in this I cannot, dearie.”

Virginia felt again the impalpable shadow of truth escaping her.  Baffled, confused, she began to lose her self-control.  A dozen times to-day she had reached after this thing, and always her fingers had closed on empty air.  She felt that she could not stand the suspense of bewilderment a single instant longer.  The tears overflowed and rolled down her cheeks unheeded.

“Oh, Mrs. Cockburn!” she cried.  “Please!  You do not know how dreadful this thing has come to be to me just because it is made so mysterious.  Why has it been kept from me alone?  It must have something to do with me, and I can’t stand this mystery, this double-dealing, another minute.  If you won’t tell me, nobody will, and I shall go on imagining—­Oh, please have pity on me!  I feel the shadow of a tragedy.  It comes out in everything, in everybody to whom I turn.  I see it in Wishkobun’s avoidance of me, in my father’s silence, in Mr. Crane’s confusion, in your reluctance—­yes, in the very reckless insolence of Mr. Trent himself!”—­her voice broke slightly.  “If you will not tell me, I shall go direct to my father,” she ended, with more firmness.

Mrs. Cockburn examined the girl’s flushed face through kindly but shrewd and experienced eyes.  Then, with a caressing little murmur of pity, she arose and seated herself on the arm of the red chair, taking the girl’s hand in hers.

“I believe you mean it,” she said, “and I am going to tell you myself.  There is much sorrow in it for you; but if you go to your father it will only make it worse.  I am doing what I should not.  It is shameful that such things happen in this nineteenth century, but happen they do.  The long and short of it is that the Factors of this Post tolerate no competition in the country, and when a man enters it for the purpose of trading with the Indians, he is stopped and sent out.”

“There is nothing very bad about that.” said Virginia, relieved.

“No, my dear, not in that.  But they say his arms and supplies are taken from him, and he is given a bare handful of provisions.  He has to make a quick journey, and to starve at that.  Once when I was visiting out at the front, not many years ago, I saw one of those men—­they called him Jo Bagneau—­and his condition was pitiable—­pitiable!”

“But hardships can be endured.  A man can escape.”

“Yes,” almost whispered Mrs. Cockburn, looking about her apprehensively, “but the story goes that there are some cases—­when the man is an old offender, or especially determined, or so prominent as to be able to interest the law—­no one breathes of these cases here—­but—­he never gets out!”