Then there was silence, and while the men stood with flushed faces too stirred as yet to remember that they had done an unusual thing, Seaforth, who had come up on some business from Vancouver with his wife, moved out a little from the rest.

“Boys,” he said, and his voice shook a little, “I would have tried to thank you on behalf of the best comrade you or I ever had, only that I fancy he will be here in a minute to answer for himself.”

He stopped abruptly, and through the silence that followed all heard a drumming that might have been made by the hoofs of a galloping horse, and Mrs. Forel wondered as she glanced at the girl opposite her across the table.  Alice Deringham had like the rest been stirred out of her reticence, and now she seemed almost transfigured with the warm flush in her cheeks and the pride discernible through the softness in her eyes.

The beat of hoofs stopped presently, and a man came hastily through the verandah.  Alice Deringham could not see him, but the flush in her cheeks grew deeper, for she knew that slightly uneven step.  Then there was a move towards the door, and she sat almost alone at the head of the table, knowing that somebody was shouldering his way through those who thronged about him in her direction.  Still she could not look until a man dropped into the vacant chair beside her.  Then she saw that Alton was glancing down at her with a question in his face.

“You are pleased that we have won?” he said.

“Yes,” said the girl, who felt that speech had its limits.  “I knew you would.”

Alton seemed to sigh with a great contentment.  “Then,” he said quietly, “if it was only to hear that I would begin it all again.”

He had no opportunity for further speech.  There were questions to be asked and answers given, while it was some hours later and most of the guests had departed when he found Alice Deringham alone upon the verandah.  The moon hung over the cedars on a black hillside, the lake flung back its radiance steelily, and the stillness was made musical by the sound of falling water.  Alton had come out from the presence of the surveyor with a glint of triumph in his eyes.

“There is only one thing wanting to make this the greatest day of my life, but without it all the rest counts for nothing.  You know what it is,” he said.

“Yes,” said Alice Deringham simply.  “But why did you not ask for it earlier, Harry?  It would have saved one of us so much.”

Alton laughed a little, and glanced down at his knee.  “Well, I fancied—­but, pshaw, I was a fool,” said he.

“Yes,” said Alice Deringham.  “I think you were—­for I was only sorry then.  And—­after all that has happened—­are you not foolish still?  I am not the woman you fancy I am, Harry, and you know how I have wronged you.”

“You are the one I want,” said Alton gravely.  “And I know who it was gave all she had to help me when I was beaten.”