The short afternoon was drawing towards its close when Vane came out of a building in Hastings Street, Vancouver. "The meeting went satisfactorily, taking it all round," he remarked to Carroll, who was with him. "I think so," agreed his companion. "But I'm far from sure that Horsfield was pleased with the stockholders' decision." Vane nodded in a thoughtful manner. After returning from the mine, he had gone inland to examine a new irrigation property he had been asked to take an interest in, and had only got back in time for a meeting of the Clermont shareholders, which Nairn had arranged in his absence. The meeting was just over, and though Vane had been forced to yield to a majority on some points, he had secured the abandonment of a proposition he considered dangerous. "Though I don't see what the man could have gained by it, I'm inclined to believe that if Nairn and I had been absent he'd have carried his reconstruction scheme," he said. "That wouldn't have pleased me." "I thought it injudicious," Carroll commented. "It was only because we must raise more money I agreed to the issue of the new shares," Vane went on. "We ought to pay a fair dividend on such a moderate sum." "You think you'll get it?" "I've not much doubt." Vane was capable and forceful; but his abilities were rather of a practical than a diplomatic order, and he was occasionally addicted to headstrong action. Knowing that he had a very cunning antagonist intriguing against him, his companion had misgivings. "Shall we walk back to the hotel?" he asked. "No," said Vane; "I'll go across and see how Celia Hartley's getting on. I'm afraid I've been forgetting her." "Then I'll come too. You may need me; there are matters you're not to be trusted with alone." Just then Nairn came down the steps and waved his hand to them. "Ye will no forget that Mrs. Nairn is expecting both of ye this evening." He passed on, and they set off together across the city towards the district where Celia lived. Though the quarter in question may have been improved out of existence since, some little time ago rows of low-rented shacks stood upon mounds of sweating sawdust which had been dumped into a swampy hollow. Leaky, frail, and fissured, they were not the kind of places any one who could help it would choose to live in; but Vane found the sick girl still installed in one of the worst of them. She looked pale and haggard; but she was busily at work upon some millinery, and the light of a tin lamp showed Drayton and Kitty Blake sitting near her. "You oughtn't to be at work; you don't look fit," Vane said to Celia, and hesitated a moment before he continued: "I'm sorry we couldn't find that spruce; but, as I told Drayton, we're going back to try again." The girl smiled bravely. "Then you'll find it next time. I'm glad I'm able to do a little; it brings a few dollars in." "But what are you doing?"