"Yes," she replied; "Jim will be there waiting; I got a telegram at Montreal. It's four years since I've seen him."
The words were simple, but there was something in the speaker's voice and eyes which stirred Alison to half-conscious envy. It was not that marriage in the abstract had any attraction for her, for the thought of it rather jarred on her temperament, and it was, perhaps, not altogether astonishing that she had of late been brought into contact chiefly with the seamy side of the masculine character. Still, lonely and cast adrift as she was, she envied this girl who had somebody to take her troubles upon his shoulders and shelter her, and she was faintly stirred by her evident tenderness for the man.
"Four years!" she said reflectively. "It's a very long time."
"Oh," declared Milly, "it wouldn't matter if it had been a dozen now. He's the same--only a little handsomer in his last picture. Except for that, he hasn't changed a bit--I read you some of his letters on the steamer."
Alison could not help a smile. The girl's upbringing had clearly been very different from her own, and the extracts from Jim's letters had chiefly appealed to her sense of the ludicrous; but now she felt that his badly expressed devotion rang true, and her smile slowly faded. It must, she admitted, be something to know that through the four years, which had apparently been ones of constant stress and toil, the man's affection had never wavered, and that his every effort had been inspired by the thought that the result of it would bring his sweetheart in England so much nearer him, until at last, as the time grew rapidly shorter, he had, as he said, worked half the night to make the rude prairie homestead more fit for her.
"I suppose he wasn't rich when he went out?"
"No," replied Milly. "Jim had nothing until an uncle died and left him three or four hundred pounds. When he came and told me of it I made him go."
"You made him go?" exclaimed Alison, wondering.
"Of course! There was no chance for him in England; I couldn't keep him, just to have him near me--always poor--and I knew that whatever he did in Canada he would be true to me. The poor boy had trouble. His first crop was frozen, and his plow oxen died--I think I told you he has a little farm three or four days' ride back from the railroad." The girl's face colored again. "I sold one or two things I had--a little gold watch and a locket--and sent him the money. I wouldn't tell him how I got it, but he said it saved him."
