“It is yours.  I let you buy it because it’s value must go up and the money’s safe.  I’m glad, of course, that you have comforts I couldn’t have given you, but it’s my business to support my wife, and I’ve got to increase my capital.  I want to give you things you like, bought with money I have earned.”

“You really want to feel independent of me,” Helen suggested with a smile.  “I suppose it’s an honest ambition, but isn’t the distinction you try to make ridiculous?”

“Perhaps, in a way,” Festing agreed.  “All the same, your help makes it my duty to do my best.  I don’t want to feel I might be forced to fall back on your dollars.”

“You are ridiculous, Stephen,” Helen rejoined.  “However, let’s talk about something else.”

The talked good-humoredly until the dew and growing cold drove them in.  Next morning Helen got up while the sun rose from behind a bluff on the edge of the plain, but when she went out on the veranda she saw the gasoline tractor and gang-plow lurch across the rise.  This indicated that Festing had been at work for some time, and she looked thoughtful as she went back into the house.

Stephen was doing too much, and she wondered whether he could keep it up.  Things, however, might be easier when the crop was sown, and if not she must insist upon his hiring extra help.  She liked to see him keen about his work, but for the last few weeks he had scarcely had a minute to talk to her, and she could not allow him to wear himself out.  After all, her money gave her some power, and there was no reason she should not use the power for her husband’s benefit.

CHAPTER XIV

SADIE FINDS A FRIEND

The sun shone hot on the rippling grass, but it was cool on the shady veranda where Helen sat in a basket chair.  A newspaper lay close by and the loose leaves fluttered now and then, but she did not notice that it was in some danger of blowing away.  She had been occupied since early morning, but was not quite asleep, for she was vaguely conscious of a rhythmic drumming.  By and by she raised her head with a jerk and glanced at the watch on her wrist.  It was three o’clock and she had been dozing for an hour.  Then the drumming fixed her attention and she saw a rig lurch along the uneven trail.  The horses were trotting fast and there were two people in the light wagon.

Helen saw that one was Charnock.  The other, who held the reins, was, no doubt, his wife, and Helen was sorry that Festing was at work beyond the rise.  She would have liked him to be there when she received her visitors, but did not think it prudent to send for him.  The rig was near the house now, and as she got up her dress moved the newspaper, which was caught by a draught and blew down the stairs and across the grass.  It flapped in the fresh wind and fell near the horses’ feet.

This was too much for the range-bred animals to stand, and they reared and plunged, and then began to back away from the fluttering white object.  Charnock jumped out and ran towards their heads, but Sadie raised her whip with a gesture of command.