"If you stayed here a few days, you could go out with the next stage, and get on to Victoria with the cars," he said. He paused and continued diffidently: "It could be arranged with the hotel-keeper." She laughed in a half-hysterical manner, and he remembered that fares were high in the country. "I suppose you have no money," he added, with blunt directness. "I want you to tell Mrs. Marvin that I'll lend her enough to take you all to Victoria." Her face crimsoned, which was not quite what he had expected, and he suddenly felt embarrassed. "No," she replied; "I can't do that. For one thing, it would be too late when we got to Victoria. I think we could get an engagement if we reached Vancouver in time to get to Kamloops by----" Vane knitted his brows when he heard the date, and it was a moment or two before he spoke. "Then," he said, "there's only one way you can do so. There's a little steamboat coming down the coast to-night, and I had half thought of intercepting her and handing the skipper some letters to post in Victoria. He knows me. That's my sloop yonder, and if I put you on board the steamer, you'd reach Vancouver in good time. We would have sailed at sun-up anyway." The girl hesitated, which struck Vane as natural, and turned partly from him. He surmised that she did not know what to make of his offer, though her need was urgent. In the meanwhile he stood up. "Come along and talk it over with Mrs. Marvin," he went on. "I'd better tell you I'm Wallace Vane of the Clermont mine. Of course, I know your name from the programme." She rose and they walked back to the hotel. Once more it struck him that the girl was pretty and graceful. On reaching the hotel, he sat down on the verandah while she went in, and a few minutes later the elder woman came out and looked at him much as the girl had done. He grew hot under her gaze and repeated his offer in the curtest terms. "If this breeze holds, we'll put you on board the steamer soon after daybreak," he explained. The woman's face softened, and he recognised now that there had been suspicion in it. "Thank you," she added, "we'll come." Then she added with an eloquent gesture: "You don't know what it means to us." Vane merely took off his hat and turned away, but a minute or two afterwards he met the hotel-keeper. "Do these people owe you anything?" he asked. "Five dollars," answered the man. Vane handed him a bill. "Take it out of this, and make any excuse you like. I'm going to put them on board the steamboat." The man made no comment, and Vane, striding down to the beach, sent a hail ringing across the water. Carroll appeared on the sloop's deck and answered him. "Hallo!" he cried. "What's the trouble?" "Get ready the best supper you can manage for three people as quick as you can." Then he turned away in a hurry, wondering rather uneasily what Carroll would say when he grasped the situation. CHAPTER II A BREEZE OF WIND.