Alton said nothing further, and when his steps rang hollowly down the stairway the girl sat down and sighed.  Then she laughed a curious little laugh and stopped to brush the tears from her eyes.

As it happened, while Nellie Townshead sat alone in the darkness Miss Deringham was writing a note to Alton.  Spoiled sheets of paper were scattered about the table, and though there was nobody to see it the girl’s face was flushed as she glanced down at the last one.  The message it bore was somewhat laconic and ran, “We are going to the opera-house on Thursday, and as there is a place not filled I would like to see you there before you start for the ranges, if you know of no reason why you should not come.”

She gave it to a maid, and sat still until she heard a door swing to, then rose swiftly and ran down the stairway.  She met the maid at the foot of it, and said breathlessly, “I want to add something to the letter.”

“It’s too late, miss,” said the maid, who was a recent importation from Britain.  “I gave it John the Chinaman, and he went off trotting as usual.  I couldn’t overtake him.”

Alice Deringham smiled a little, though her voice belied her as she said, “It is of no importance.  I can write another.”

She knew, however, that no second message she could send would repair what she had done, for Alton had timed his departure for the ranges next day, and several must elapse before Thursday came.  He would, she also felt assured, not fail to come.

Miss Deringham was justified, for a few days later Seaforth stood waiting in the snow with a pack-horse’s bridle in his hand, and several brawny men with heavy packs slung about them close by, when Tom of Okanagan drove into the clearing as fast as his smoking team could haul the jolting wagon.

“You can sling all those things down again,” he said.  “Thomson rode in with a wire from the railroad, and Harry’s not coming.”

“Not coming?” said Seaforth bewilderedly as he opened the message.  “We’ve no time to lose—­now.”

Then he crumpled the strip of paper angrily.  “We’ll push on slowly, boys, until he comes up with us, but you had better wait for him, Tom,” he said, and added half aloud, “The devil take all women!”

Miss Deringham went to the opera-house on Thursday with a somewhat distinguished party, and though a storm of applause greeted the eminent English dramatist, and the play was a popular one, saw very little of him or the first act of it.  Then when the glitter of lights filled the building as the curtain went down she looked about her with veiled expectancy.  She knew Alton of Somasco, and that if he intended to keep the assignation he would then come when everybody could see him.

She had also surmised correctly, for just then Alton, who had shouldered his way through a group in the corridor, moved down it under a blaze of light, his head erect, and his face somewhat grim as he saw the smiles and glances of disapproval of those who made way for him.  As the rancher who was fighting Hallam and the capitalists behind him he was already known in that city, and the story that the woman who was spoken of with him had assisted him from the beginning by betraying the secrets of those who employed her at his instigation had spread, and told against him.