“Don’t greet, that’s a good lassie,” he said soothingly.  “There’s truth in what ye have said—­that it’s dull for ye here because ye have nothing to look ahead to.  Well, I’ll tell ye what I didn’t mean to tell ye while ye are so young—­when ye’re older, if ye’re a good lassie and go on learning your lessons as ye have been doing, I will ask ye to marry me, and then (we hope of course to get more beforehand wi’ money as years go) ye will have more interest and—­”

“Marry!” interrupted the girl, not strongly, but speaking in faint wonder, as if echoing a word she did not quite understand.

“Yes,” he went on with great kindliness, “I talked it over with your father before he went, and he was pleased.  I told him that, in a year or two, if he liked it, I would marry ye—­it’s only if ye like, of course; and ye’d better not think about it now, for ye’re too young.”

“Marry me!” This time the exclamation came from her with a force that was appalling to him.  The coarse handkerchief which she had been holding to her eyes was withdrawn, and with lips and eyes open she exclaimed again:  “Marry me! You!”

It was remarkable how this man, who so far was using, and through long years had always used, only the tone of mentor, now suddenly began to try to justify himself with almost childlike timidity.

“Your father and I didn’t know of any one else hereabouts that would suit, and of course we knew ye would naturally be disappointed if ye didn’t marry.”  He went on muttering various things about the convenience of such an arrangement.

She listened to nothing more than his first sentence, and began to move away from him slowly a few steps backwards; then, perceiving that she had come to the brink of the level ground, she turned and suddenly stretched out her arm with almost frantic longing toward the cold, grey lake and the dark hills behind, where the fires of the west still struggled with the encroaching November night.

As she turned there was light enough for him to see how bright the burning colour of her hair was—­bright as the burning copper glow on the lower feathers of those great shadowy wings of cloud—­the wings of night that were enfolding the dying day.  Some idea, gathered indefinitely from both the fierceness of her gesture and his transient observation of the colour of her hair, suggested to him that he had trodden on the sacred ground of a passionate heart.

Poor man!  He would have been only too glad just then to have effaced his foot-prints if he had had the least idea how to do it.  The small shawl she wore fell from her unnoticed as she went quickly into the house.  He picked it up, and folded it awkwardly, but with meditative care.  It was a square of orange-coloured merino, such as pedlars who deal with the squaws always carry, an ordinary thing for a settler’s child to possess.  As he held it, Bates felt compunction that it was not something finer and to his idea prettier, for he did not like the colour.  He decided that he would purchase something better for her as soon as possible.  He followed her into the house.