CHAPTER XXIX

GEORGE REPROACHES HIMSELF

The days were getting shorter fast, but the evening was warm when George Strange leaned against the rails of Farnam’s veranda.  He had arrived, looking anxious, as supper was served, but did not state why he felt disturbed and Mrs. Farnam waited.  She knew he had come to consult her, and thought she knew what about.  Now he gazed moodily across the orchard, where red and yellow apples gleamed on the bent branches.  The slanting sunbeams struck across the trees, which melted, farther off, into the blue shadow of the bush.

“That’s a great show of fruit,” he remarked.

“Pretty good,” Farnam agreed.  “Reports indicate that packers won’t find much surplus for shipping in the United States, and prices will be high.  In fact, I rather think my speculation is justified.  Although clearing new ground and buying young trees made a drain on my capital—­”

“Don’t tell him he’s enterprising!  He’s too adventurous,” interrupted Mrs. Farnam, who wanted to give George a lead.  “It’s exciting to take chances, but they don’t always turn out as one hopes.  But how’s your business?  I understand trade is dull.”

“I have known it better, but that’s not bothering me.”

“Still as you don’t look serene, I imagine something is bothering you.”

“I don’t feel serene, and that’s why I came.  You know Agatha better than anybody else.  Have you heard from her recently?”

“Not since the letter she sent me when she reached the mine, and you saw that.  I’m getting anxious.  She has stopped some time and the school has reopened.”

“She has stopped too long,” said George, whose face got red.  “It looks as if you didn’t know they had filled her post.”

“I was afraid they might do so, but it’s a shock all the same.  But perhaps you can do something.  You persuaded the principal and managers when Agatha was ill.”

“I’ve come from Toronto and I saw the principal,” George replied.  “Couldn’t get at anybody else and imagine they didn’t want to see me.”

“Well?” said Mrs. Farnam when he stopped with some embarrassment.

“She was very polite, with the kind of politeness that freezes you.  Didn’t say much—­nothing that I could get hold of and deny.  But she implied a lot.”

“You can be frank.  I believe I’m Agatha’s oldest friend and I trust my husband with all I know.”

“Very well; I’ve got to talk.  Miss Southern began by supposing I had come to explain my sister’s neglect of her duty, which had made things awkward at the school.  I said I had not; I didn’t know why Agatha had not come back, but had no doubt it was because she found it impossible.  She’d gone off on an excursion into the northern bush, and accidents happened.  One lost one’s canoes and provisions ran out.

“Miss Southern said it was plain that as Agatha had important duties she ought not to run such a risk, and asked what was the object of the excursion.