She wondered why the warm color had crept into her companion's face, but Barbara said nothing, and vacantly watched the road that wound up through the meadows out of the valley, until a moving object appeared where it crossed the crest of the hill. In the meanwhile her thoughts were busy, for the Major's suggestive little story had not been without its effect on her, and the case of Reggie Ferris was, it seemed, remarkably similar to that of a certain Canadian flume-builder. The English soldier and Grant Devine had both been charitable, but she and the girl who was sorry ever since had shown themselves merciless, and there was in that connection a curious significance in the fact that Reggie Ferris, who was now brilliantly blotting out the past, wrote nobody but his mother and the man who had given him what the latter termed another chance. Barbara remembered the afternoon when she waited at the window and Brooke, who, she fancied, could have done so had he wished, had not come up from the depot. She could not ignore the fact that this had since occasioned her a vague uneasiness. In the meanwhile the moving object had been growing larger, and when it reappeared lower down the road resolved itself into a gardener who had been despatched to the nearest village on a bicycle. "We will wait until Tom brings in the letters," said Hetty. It was a few minutes later when the man came up the path and handed her a packet. Among the letters she spread out there was one for Barbara, whose face grew suddenly intent as she opened it. It was from Mrs. Devine, and the thin paper crackled under her tightening fingers as she read:-- "I have been alone since I last wrote you, as Grant had to go up to the Dayspring suddenly and has not come back. There was, I understand, a big flood in the valley above the mine, and Brooke, it seems, was very seriously hurt when endeavoring to protect the workings. I don't understand exactly how it happened, though I surmise from Grant's letters that he did a very daring thing. He is now in the Vancouver hospital, for although Grant wished him brought here, the surgeon considered him far too ill to move. His injuries, I understand, are not very serious in themselves, but it appears that the man was badly worn out and run down when he sustained them, and his condition, I am sorry to say, is just now very precarious." The rest of the letter concerned the doings of Barbara's friends in Vancouver, but the girl read no more of it, and sat still, a trifle white in the face, with her hands trembling, until Hetty turned to her. "You don't look well," she said. "I hope nothing has happened to your sister or Mr. Devine?" "No," said Barbara, quietly, though there was a faint tremor in her voice. "They are apparently in as good health as usual."