"Yes, at Allway. She was visiting her great-aunt there. A most remarkable
old lady. I was working with MacKeller then, an old Scotch engineer who
had picked me up in London and taken me back to Quebec with him. He had
the contract for the Allway Bridge, but before he began work on it he
found out that he was going to die, and he advised the committee to turn
the job over to me. Otherwise I'd never have got anything good so early.
MacKeller was an old friend of Mrs. Pemberton, Winifred's aunt. He had
mentioned me to her, so when I went to Allway she asked me to come to
see her. She was a wonderful old lady."

"Like her niece?" Wilson queried.

Bartley laughed. "She had been very handsome, but not in Winifred's way.
When I knew her she was little and fragile, very pink and white, with
a splendid head and a face like fine old lace, somehow,--but perhaps I
always think of that because she wore a lace scarf on her hair. She had
such a flavor of life about her. She had known Gordon and Livingstone
and Beaconsfield when she was young,--every one. She was the first woman
of that sort I'd ever known. You know how it is in the West,--old people
are poked out of the way. Aunt Eleanor fascinated me as few young women
have ever done. I used to go up from the works to have tea with her, and
sit talking to her for hours. It was very stimulating, for she couldn't
tolerate stupidity."

"It must have been then that your luck began, Bartley," said Wilson,
flicking his cigar ash with his long finger. "It's curious, watching
boys," he went on reflectively. "I'm sure I did you justice in the
matter of ability. Yet I always used to feel that there was a weak spot
where some day strain would tell. Even after you began to climb, I stood