The Law-bringers/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
"BUT THAT CAN'T BE"
"Come in," said the Commissioner.
Dick halted yet another moment before he followed his knock into the office. These three days in the Regina Headquarters of the Royal North-West Mounted Police had brought him back to the trim alertness required of every man who wears the buffalo-badge, and his mind was fully as alert as his body. But it was much less brushed and buttoned into shape, and his eyes were anxious as he crossed over the threshold, saluted, and stood up, rigid and expressionless, before the Commissioner.
The Commissioner was sitting sideways at his table with his keen face more grave than was usual. Many things and many men passed under his hands, and his work was often weighty on him. But he loved it, and he took a pride in his men, although he seldom told them so. He had known Dick in the days when Dick was rough-rider here, and he had seen him many times since when he sent the man out on his lone patrols and welcomed him when he came back to report. He turned to him now with the steady eyes that had learnt how to judge men while the man himself was learning how to trust them, neither forgetting nor ignoring conditions of upbringing or birth.
"You are looking better than when you came in," he said. "Are you feeling as fit as you look?"
"Quite, thank you, sir."
"Ready for another lone patrol?"
A change flickered over the composed face before him. It was gone instantly; even before Dick said his respectful "Yes, sir." But the Commissioner had seen it, and again he wished, as he had so often wished before, that it was not incumbent on him to treat these fiery pieces of flesh and blood and spirit so like machines.
"You have had seven months of severe work," he said. "I should not send you out again just now if I did not believe that you were the most suitable man I can spare at present."
"I am ready to go, sir," said Dick.
He had regained his outward balance, but his mind was whirling. Ducane—he was one of the principal witnesses in Ducane's case. He had got the information together. He knew more of the connecting links than anyone else. If he were sent away again, for months, perhaps for a year, what was going to happen to that case? The Commissioner was watching him.
"What is it, Heriot?" he asked.
"I was thinking about that case of Ducane's, sir. I worked it up—so far as it went."
"Ah! Ducane. Yes, of course. He's in cells here, is he not? Yes. I have all the information on that case tabulated here. Sergeant Jones sent it down from Grey Wolf, and of course it has been in abeyance until we got the man. Did this Ducane tell you that he desired to turn King's evidence?"
"He said so. But I didn't believe" Dick stopped in disgust.
"Well, it is a fact. I saw him the morning after you brought him in, and he gave me the names of this company. I am operating now on the basis of what I got from him, and I fancy we can manage without you, Heriot. You are wanted for more important work." The Commissioner smiled. "This man will be no trouble," he said. "He is eager to tell everything in order to lighten his sentence. He will lighten it, of course. In fact, after the case comes up in court he will probably be let out on bail pending the arrest of the other men. There is a bigger thing behind this than the petty rogueries of Ducane, and I can assure you that your thorough work in the matter will not go unappreciated."
The Commissioner smiled again, but Dick's face was a blank. A cold horror had shut down over him. Ducane out on bail; penniless; practically a moral and physical wreck, and Jennifer with no one to guard her, no one to help her against him. He had not forgotten Jennifer's steady words that night in the Edmonton hotel.
"If he needs my help I shall always give it; " and he knew that she meant what she said. Through this long journey he had taken comfort in the thought that at least he was insuring her safety from Ducane. Now, seeing what he had done, and seeing himself helpless, he had no words to say.
"On the day you came in I wired Grey Wolf Barracks for the arrest of the girl called Grange's Andree," said the Commissioner, turning over the papers on his desk, Sergeant Jones' reply came in an hour ago."
He paused, and Dick answered with his mechanical, "Yes, sir." He had neither thought nor care to spare for Andree at this moment.
"Sergeant Jones says that full inquiries have been made concerning the girl," went on the Commissioner, picking up a telegraph-form. "She is not in Grey Wolf. It has been ascertained that she went North, probably on the Peace, with two nuns who were going in to Fort Vermilion just before the rivers shut down."
"Went North! Andree!" Dick was startled into sudden attention. "She must have had word of this," he said.
"Ah!" The Commissioner leaned forward. "Why should you think that?"
"Why—she has always had a superstition against the North. She used to say that she would never come back if she once went down there"
"You know her, then?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ah! How do you suggest that she might have been warned?"
"I don't know. Yes, I do. Ducane likely talked about the matter to someone and word got round to her. There has been plenty of time. It is over a year since he had the paper."
"I see. Then you think that she has gone North in order to escape?"
"Very probably," said Dick.
"I see." The Commissioner sat back in his chair, frowning at the wall.
"This complicates the affair," he said. "She has had six weeks or two months' start. But it makes me all the more certain of the wisdom of my original decision. I have detailed you to bring the girl in, Heriot. It is a cold time of year for travel, but you are acclimated to that."
"You want me—to go after Andree?"
Dick spoke low and dazedly. The thought seemed strangely horrible and unreal.
"And as soon as possible." The Commissioner's voice sharpened. "We hanged Robison," he said. "We have hanged an innocent man. That is a stain which, to my knowledge, has not been on our name before, and I would give a very great deal if it could be wiped out. Unfortunately that is impossible; but it is all the more our duty to bring the real criminal to justice without loss of time. You have a genius for marking down your men, and I don't think I could do better than send you after her."
Dick did not speak. The Commissioner turned back to the table.
"You can get a dog-train outfit in Grey Wolf, of course," he said. "Don't delay at any point on account of funds. The honour of the whole Force is more or less tarnished until we get her. For if she knows of it we may be sure that she is not the only one. You will leave here in the morning. Come to me after stables, and I will give you your letter of instructions."
Dick was dismissed, but still he did not move. The Commissioner looked at him again, and then for a moment he trod over the barrier of discipline.
"This patrol doesn't please you," he said. "I am sorry, for I have always looked on you as one of our keenest men. What is your objection?"
"I knew her—rather well," said Dick slowly. "I had sooner it had been another man to take her, sir."
The Commissioner looked away again. There was evidently much more here than he knew. But he had no right to probe too far into the inner lives of these men whom he ruled.
"I am sorry," he said. "But it is not necessary for me to tell you that in such work as we have to do private feelings must be ignored. The fact is, I trust you to make good time over this, Heriot. There is a good deal at stake. And in sending you I believe that I am sending the best man I have. You hold a good reputation for that kind of work, you know. That is all. Come and see me in the morning. You will be driven into Regina to catch the mid-day train West."
Dick went out. He turned along the familiar side-walk and across the barrack-square. But he did not know where he went, nor why. Like a burning-glass his mind was focussed suddenly on one point. He would not go after Andree. He would not, and he could not. He would go East; East to Jennifer. He would desert and go to Jennifer, and he would make her give him the comfort he would need when the shame of what he had done became known. He would take Jennifer, because Ducane must not take her, and he would take with her the searing disgrace and the need for the avoidance of his kind which must follow his desertion. He loved his work. It was the only thing which held honour alive in him. But he loved Jennifer.
"And by , I'll keep him away from her," he said, half-aloud.
"What's that?" A Colour-Sergeant thrust his arm through Dick's and walked on with him. "Glad to see you again, Heriot. A kid we had here—Warriner—was always talking about you and the other Grey Wolf folk. By the bye, queer thing that Mrs. Ducane should go back there, isn't it?"
"She's in Toronto"
"Not she. Grey Wolf, my boy. Grey Wolf. Been there the last six months. She"
Dick ceased to hear. He was suddenly very angry with Jennifer. What had induced her to go up there again? She must have known that it would be much more difficult for him to take her away from there; much more difficult for him to escape from there. How the devil was he to
He stopped impatiently, knocking the snow off his high fur over-boots. He had forgotten that Jennifer knew nothing of this determination of his.
"Is she alone?" he asked abruptly.
"Who? Oh, Mrs. Ducane? No; she has her mother with her, I believe. I fancy that if Ducane"
The stream of talk went on, leaving Dick still more angry. Her mother! What in the name of sense had possessed Jennifer to saddle herself with her mother? What was he going to do with her mother? And how was he going to persuade her, even though he persuaded Jennifer? Even though? Sudden dread of the doubt which those words implied chilled him. He forgot the difficulties; he forgot the sacrifice; he forgot his anger. He remembered only that he wanted her—wanted her; that she was the one sweet and sacred thing to him—the one salve to all the aches and bruises that life had given him.
He went back to his corner of the bunk-room which he shared with four other men, and sat on his bunk with his head in his hands.
"I've got to think this out—I've got to think this out," he said, over and over. But his will would not hold any one point true. Again and again it swung him up into the wind, and he shivered, helpless as a ship in irons.
Tempest and Andree: Jennifer and Ducane: his own good name and the way men spoke of it from Herschel across to Fullerton and south into Regina itself. It was not his private name that he cared about. That had been blurred long years ago. But he was jealous for his work. His work. The one thing which he had never betrayed or belittled or neglected. The one thing which he had served purely, according to his lights. He had dreaded always that life and passion might call on him to cash in his brain also at the bank of his heart, and he knew that if ever that day came it would leave him naked of something which he never would have any more. His work was the one firm thing which he had clung to, and he knew, with a terrible clearness of vision, that even with Jennifer's arms about him, his soul would be sick for that world still, and for the pride which he had lost.
He stood up at last; changed his boots, thrust his cheque-book into his inner pocket, and went down to ask the O.C. for leave. He banked in Regina, and it was wise for a deserter to draw all his money out betimes, for, as he knew well, a cheque is often one of those little threads by which a man ties himself to that which he would escape.
And the next morning, across the snow-bound prairies, sat in the train that rocked west, ever west, and fitted into shape with grim precision every move in this game which he meant to play.
It must be played quickly. He could not go to Grey Wolf and not go to the barracks. That would raise suspicion too soon. And he could not go to the barracks without reporting to Sergeant Jones, who knew already that he had been detailed for the patrol and who would already be getting the outfit together. Therefore, at whatever hour of the day or the night he took Jennifer away with him, it would not be long before he was looked for. He could hoodwink them in several ways, and he thought those ways out, hour by hour, sitting in the position which Tempest knew so well, with one knee over the other, and his chin shut into his hand. But for all the start he might get it would be little enough in that country where the few winter trails are known as a man knows the number of his fingers. Again he felt irritation at Jennifer because she had gone back to Grey Wolf.
"She might have known I would come to her," he said. "She might have known."
He felt strangely fretful and angry about something. He was going to give what to him would be the greatest sacrifice of his life, even though he gained what he most desired by it. But he could feel no exaltation; no calm determination. A child playing up and down the corridor offered him some candy.
"Those are kisses," she said, with her red lips upturned. But he pushed her aside with his knee.
"I don't want any," he said sharply, and she ran back to her mother, half-frightened.
Then his mind began to run on the fear of what Jennifer would say. She would not refuse again. He had got to break down her resistance this time. He had got to do it. He felt maddened at the very thought of going North and leaving her where Ducane could trouble her.
"She has got to give in," he told himself. "She has got to give in."
And then he sat still, and thought of all the things which he would say to her.
He had a month in which to mature those plans and arguments. A month of sleigh-driving behind the ringing horse-bells; of impatient waiting at side-way houses for a team; of cold beds and discomfort and the magic of the North pulling at his heart-strings and the shame of his purpose heavy on his soul. He faced that knowledge, looking out into the white world with sullen eyes and bitten lips. Again Life was making a jest of him. But this time he could not fling the jest back. The barb had gone too deep. His pride was touched, and he could not contemplate the loss of that even in his secret heart and hold his head up.
He looked worn and thin and sulky when he knocked the snow of Grey Wolf off his over-boots on the familiar step and went into the barracks to report to Sergeant Jones. And the sight of the florid, fleshy little man in the chair which had once been Tempest's did not ease his spirit. Sergeant Jones had many things to say, and the short winter twilight had already shut down when Dick escaped and went through the kitchen to find Poley. His impatience to see Jennifer was over-riding most things now; but the human part of him had to obey the calls of cold and hunger. And something of the keen edge of his temper softened at the old man's welcome, and at the hot food, and the warmth, and at Kennedy bursting in, rosy-faced and incoherent with delight.
The boy looked older, with little lines showing already about the corners of his eyes. His manner was more assured, and Dick looked on that piece of his work with pleasure. He was going out of it all, and Kennedy was exactly the kind of fellow to curse him with tears in his eyes and the bitterest profanity he knew. But he would not be able to forget that Dick had made him. The mess-room was dearly familiar, with the smells of old from the kitchen and the mat before the stove where Dick's pipe had burnt a hole. And Poley was dearly familiar, with his red rough beard where the grey hairs showed and his watery blue eyes either side the bloated nose. The man who had taken Dick's place was away, and Dick was thankful. For one little hour he lived here again in his own right. Then he stood up.
"I think I'll go round and see if Grey Wolf has got all its corners yet," he said. "Don't wait up for me, Kennedy. I can find my way into my bunk, I fancy."
Kennedy had talked of everything he knew; including the disappearance of Grange's Andree, and the rumour (it was no more than a rumour) which had slid through Grey Wolf whispering that she was wanted.
"Don't speak of Andree to Grange," he said. "He's awfully cut up about it. You wouldn't think the little fellow'd a-had so much heart. He's blocked Moosta showing these pictures of yours around to folks since she left."
Dick had forgotten those pictures. He remembered them now with a swift pang. Then he nodded acquiescence, and went out.
But he did not turn down the well-known flapping side-walk to Grange's. He went across to the frozen lake where the snow lay levelly hard and white under the new-come dark. Far over the glimmering stretch shone the lights of Jennifer's home, and Dick turned his face towards them and walked forward quickly.
In the early days of her married life Jennifer had left the house-blinds up at night that the lights of his home might greet Ducane the moment he turned his eyes towards them from far off. Later she had drawn them that she might not see the gleam from the police barracks shoot out into the gloom. Now that neither Ducane nor barracks mattered any more she left them up, because she loved to see the white stars and the dance of the northern lights when the lamps were low, and to watch for the occasional beat of, a night-bird's wings on the pane.
This night there were no northern lights, and the stars were shrouded. But the blinds were up still, though the lamps were high, and Jennifer sat in the softened glow of them, sewing on some white work. A half-made pinafore intended for one of Miss Chubb's children at the English Mission School lay on the floor beside her, and a black kitten had rolled itself up in it. Jennifer stooped to roll it out again, and heard across the room a sound like the flutter of a bird's wings on the glass. She looked round. And then she sprang to her feet; dropping her work, and shutting her hands over her leaping heart.
In the sudden terror of her face and her wide-stretched eyes Dick knew what he had done. Of course she did not know that he was within a thousand miles; two thousand; five. She would think that his spirit had come to tell her of his death. She would think
"Good Lord," he said. "I've frightened the life out of her," and he ran hastily to the door into the side-hall.
Then he remembered that his disappearance would put more truth to her fear, and he cursed himself for a clumsy fool as he wrenched the door open; shed his heavy furs and cap in one movement, and thrust open the sitting-room door. Jennifer heard his feet, and she turned. She saw him at the door, but she could not believe. His face was so thin and his dark eyes looked so far back under those heavy brows.
"Jennifer!" he said; and with a queer, choked cry, she put out her hands to him, tottering where she stood.
Then she felt herself swept up in his arms, and his kisses on her; warm, strong, quick kisses over her lips and her eyes and her hair. She clung to him blindly, passionately; sobbing in little gasps, and incapable of any but the one thought that he had come back to her. He had come back, and all the terrible blanks of her life were filled by the touch of his lips and his arms.
He held her close, speaking with tender, broken words such as no one had ever heard on his tongue before. To the end of her life she remembered the smell of the wood-smoke in his clothes; the roughness of his coat-collar where her tears wetted it; the shaking gentleness of his voice. He carried her over to the lounge by the open fire, and put her on it; sitting beside her with his arms round her yet, and his hand stroking her hair.
"I told you it had to come to this," he said unsteadily. "Darling—my darling—don't shiver so. It's all right, dear. It's all right now."
"I thought you were dead," she sobbed. "When I saw—I thought you were dead."
"I know. I know. Stupid brute that I was to frighten you so. You know better now, sweetheart, don't you? Are these the kisses of a dead man?"
He was controlling himself with difficulty. Ducane was forgotten; his own black, fierce fight with himself was forgotten. Nothing mattered but the sweetness of her lips on his own and that vague fragrance that clung about her hair and dress. It intoxicated him. He held her off; looking at her out of shining eyes, and laughing with pure pagan joy.
"Are you alive?" he said. "You little wild-haired thing! You want a garland of acorns and oak-leaves on that head of yours, and all the green grass under a fairy-forest to dance on."
The glowing exultance of him seemed to fill the room up. Her veins tingled with his vitality. He put an electric spark into the air which lighted her own heart to a flame.
"I wanted you," she cried. "Dick, I wanted you! I wanted you!"
"I know you did. And I wanted you. And I've come to you. Good Lord, we thought we could do without each other, did we? What fools we were, my little girl. What fools! Ah! We're wiser now. Kiss me, sweetheart. Jennifer, if the skies fall, we'll have the hour. We'll have the hour, by God, whatever comes."
His vehemence began to frighten her. She shrank a little in the strong grasp of his arms.
"I can't think," she said breathlessly. "When you look and talk like that I can't think."
"Who wants you to think? Leave that for another day. Laugh, Jennifer. Don't look at me with your dear mouth quivering so. Laugh, sweetheart, for we have found each other at last."
For the moment she believed it. He was so glad, so gloriously sure. She smiled faintly, uncertainly, looking up at him with wet, hungry eyes. She noted the dark bruise which Ducane had made on his cheek-bone, and the rumpled hair, and the deep wind-burn tan of his skin. She put her fingers up softly to the bruise.
"Does that hurt?" she whispered.
He laughed again, remembering whose hand had given it.
"Not now, my darling. No. Nothing can hurt me now, I think. I'm going to wear you for an amulet in future, little girl. Do you hear that? You're coming away with me, Jennifer. Where shall we go, honey? We've all the world before us. Australia, with a sheep-run of our own? Or South Africa, with little nigger-boys to dig us diamonds? Or I know a place down at the bottom of Malay" He was laughing still; stooping his ruddy, wind-whipped fact to hers. "Anywhere, sweetheart. Anywhere at all. We've got the whole world to choose from, and there's always room for another rover on the Out Trail."
By the force of him he was sweeping her out into the atmosphere where his wild soul lived and drew deep breaths. But the air there was too strong for Jennifer. She felt suffocated; giddy; afraid. She pressed his face back with both hands, and he kissed the palms where they lay across his lips.
"Oh, don't," she gasped. "You frighten me."
"Poor little white bird. My darling, you're shaking all over. It was that cursed foolishness of mine at the window. See, then, is this going to bring the colour back?"
He kissed her eyelids and her forehead and her white cheeks; tenderly, remorsefully, and, like a weary baby, she let him do it. The storm of his passion seemed to have torn her strength up by the roots. She had nothing left to fight him with. She was scarcely conscious that there was need for fight. But dimly she felt that something wonderful and precious had come to her and that it could not stay.
"If one could only die," she whispered. "When one was perfectly happy, if one could only die."
His face changed and darkened. He, too, had forgotten the realities until her words brought them round him with thronging feet.
"Better to live and keep on being perfectly happy, you little silly thing," he said.
"But that can't be," she said, like one repeating a lesson. "That can't be."
Then he felt her move as though to push him away, and he held her more closely, foreseeing the battle that was coming. His strongly-masculine mind saw no use in it. There could be but the one end now. But he knew that the woman would have to go round about to it, and he waited, with his mouth a little set and a queer smile in his eyes.
"Let me go," she said. "Let me go. Oh, what have you made me do?"
"Something that neither of us will ever forget," he said unsteadily. "I think I will remember the touch of your dear lips on mine when I am in my grave."
"Oh, how could I forget!" She spoke in a rush of terror, with the blood burning her face. "I only thoughtof you——"
"You have only to think of me now till the end of time, Jennifer."
"No! No! You know that is not true. Oh, let me go! Let me go!"
She burst into an agony of weeping; flinging him off, and hiding her head among the cushions of the couch. He saw her slim body shake and jerk with the violence of her grief, and he stooped over her in a distress almost as great as her own. Something of the sort he had expected, although he could not understand it. But this shook him to the very core.
"Darling," he said. "Darling—for God's sake, don't. Jennifer, Jennifer; don't cry like that. Good Heavens, what can I do! What can I do! She'll kill herself. Dearest, dearest. Stop. Oh, Lord, what a clumsy brute I am."
He went down on his knees beside her; pleading in broken words; trying to see her face; shaking and moved beyond belief at her trouble, and yet knowing grimly that he must hold such rights as he had gained, both for her sake and for his own. He could never leave her now. She needed him too much.
"For the love of Heaven, stop, Jennifer," he said. "I—I can't stand it. There is nothing on earth should make you cry like that. Dear; I'm not asking much of you. People get divorces every day, and you have a perfect right to demand one of Ducane."
He laid his hand on her shoulder; but she shook it off, and sprang up, with the tears dried in her eyes.
"Don't touch me," she said, with burning cheeks. Don't touch me."
He had seen flashes of Jennifer's occasional temper before, and he breathed more freely; standing up against the mantel-shelf as she walked through the room with her hands shut up, fighting for her self-control. He did not attempt to speak, knowing that she would scatter his words out like chaff. He stood still, looking at the black kitten where it wound itself in a spool of Jennifer's thread, and presently she burst out:
"You should have helped me to do what was right. You are the strongest; you should have helped me."
"I did," he said, not looking at her. "It was right for you to come to me. We love each other."
"It is not right while Harry is alive. And I feel that he is. I"
"He is alive," said Dick coldly. "I have left him in prison at Regina Barracks. I found him living among the Esquimaux with a native wife."
He raised his eyes and looked at her as he spoke. But she swung round and walked the room again, and be could not tell how much she was stirred by his news. She walked in silence, and presently he was ashamed of his brutality.
"For God's sake have some pity on me, Jennifer," he said. "Don't treat me as if I'd been a scoundrel."
"Then you must help me do what is right," she said.
"What do you choose to call right?"
"Sending you—away."
The voice very nearly broke. Dick laughed, half-impatient, half-desperate.
"Merci much, as the breeds say. No, I'm not going to help you do that. You hardly expect it, do you?"
"If you love me, I do."
"But this is madness," he said in exasperation. "There's no use going over all this ground again, Jennifer. You know what I thought before. Now, after what you have allowed me to do, I consider that I have some say in the matter. I am not going to be sent away."
She stopped and looked at him with her eyes wide in her white face.
"You are making my punishment a very certain and bitter thing," she said.
"My darling—oh, good Heavens, what am I to do with you? Sweetheart, when a thing is done, it's done. You showed me just now that I meant more to you than anyone else. You can't take that back. It is not right that you should. Doesn't the God you believe in allow His creatures happiness, Jennifer? And if He does why should you deny it to us both?"
"Because this would not be the way to get it," she said.
He went to her and took her hand and led her back to the couch.
"Come here and sit down," he said. "You are not fit to stand. If we have got to go over this again I suppose we have got to. But we have not gone into it lightly, you and I. To disobey man's law means very little to me. Perhaps I know too many of the reasons why he makes many of them. And I do not"
He stopped suddenly. He could not say that he did not believe in a God now.
"You—you believe in a God," he muttered, hardly knowing what he said.
"In my God and in my conscience," said Jennifer. "Dick, I have got to help Harry still if he needs help. He is my husband. I can't let him utterly go to ruin. Oh, there is something in me which tells me that I can't."
She pressed her hands over her heart again, looking at him with her wide, wistful eyes. He could not meet that look. But in some way it angered him. What was that thing in Tempest and in Jennifer which commanded them apart from their hearts and their human wills? It was a power that they dare not disobey; that they would not disobey though all that was flesh in them cried out against it. He felt afraid; groping in the dark below them. That great Eye seemed moving down from the horizon of the world again. Jennifer could stand up before it. Tempest could. But he could not. He wanted his own will, and he hated that which denied it to him.
"And don't you think I want help?" he said bitterly.
"Yes. But I can only give it to you by being away from you."
"If you'd be good enough not to talk sophistries or enigmas—I beg your pardon. I don't know what I am saying."
He sprang up and walked through the room several times. Then he came back, beginning boldly:
"I tell you I need you more than Ducane does. As philanthropy seems to mean more to you than love you might make a note of that. You've filled my life up—every hour of it"
His voice grew uneven; stopped, and he stood still, looking into the fire. For a little while she did not speak. Then she said:
"What had you wanted me to do?"
"To come away with me to-morrow." His voice changed eagerly. "I could arrange that quite easily. And then you'd go to the States, and I'd meet you somewhere."
"And your work?"
He felt the twinge. But it was a light one. Beside her nothing else was of moment.
"That doesn't matter," he said.
"How do you mean?"
"Well, it doesn't matter. You come first."
"Then you—meant to desert?"
"I tell you it doesn't matter," he said impatiently. "They wouldn't catch me. I know more than any of them."
"Oh!" Jennifer leaned back, covering her face. "And you are so proud of what you have done in your work."
"I would be more proud of your love for me," he said sincerely.
"And then?"
"I could get work somehow. Anything that paid. I'm strong. And I am good at draughtsmanship. I might get into an architect's office. I wouldn't let things be hard for you, Jennifer."
He came near, almost timidly, as though afraid that she might deny that which she seemed to be giving. Her eyes ran over. He was blooded to the wild ways and the long trails. The very breath of them spoke in his daily speech, and she knew she had never plumbed his love for her until now.
"I told you once before that you were a better man than I knew," she said. "I tell you again. There is something too great in you to be spoiled, Dick. You must make it easy for me to do what I know to be right."
His face darkened again. He knelt a knee on the couch beside her.
"There is nothing great in me except my love for you," he said. "With your love I might make something of my life, even if I—though I give this work up. But if you send me away I can't say what I shall do, Jennifer. There is nothing in me which holds me straight. I don't want to be held straight."
"Not for my sake?"
"No. Not for your sake, without you. You don't know very much of a man's temper, Jennifer. And you don't know the work I'm on just now. They are sending me out after Grange's Andree. She is wanted, and I'm to go till I find her."
He spoke roughly, wanting to rouse her jealousy. But he felt the unworthiness of his thought when she looked up at him.
"Poor Andree," she said. "Poor, poor Andree. Oh, Dick; be good to her. She cares for you, and she is too—too ignorant to hide it."
"I know she cares. I taught her to," he said.
Jennifer put out her hand to him.
"Don't hurt us both that way, dear," she said. "Can't we say good-bye without hard words?"
"God knows," he said. "I don't see how we're going to say it at all. I don't see why we should say it." He gripped both her hands suddenly, bringing his face near. It was very white, and the forehead was wet.
"Jennifer," he said, "I need you. Don't turn me away. I need you. I don't know what I may do."
He was speaking with a premonition of what was to come upon him. She shivered, but her eyes were steady.
"It's something beyond me, Dick," she said. "I know I must send you away. I know. You must find your own salvation, and fight your fight alone."
"Then you don't love me as I love you," he said huskily. "You are not willing to give up even a private scruple for me."
He did not say what he had been willing to give up for her. But she knew, though even then she did not know all.
"I would give up my life for you," she said. "But the other thing is not mine to give. It belongs to God."
She said it quite simply, as though she believed it. Dick looked at her a moment. Then he stood up, drawing his breath in between his teeth.
"That ends it, I fancy," he said. "I suppose you hope that some day I'll come to love that Power which you have set up between us. I am not quite such a fool, Jennifer. I shall never do anything but hate it."
He turned down the room as though to leave her without another word. But at the door he wheeled swiftly and came back; caught her close in his arms; kissed her once on the lips, and let her go. She heard his quick, firm tread across the floor and the decisive shutting of the door. And then she dropped down on the couch in a little heap with her face covered.
Jennifer's mother also heard the shutting of the door. She had been listening for it ever since she came down the passageway more than half an hour ago, and found Dick's coat and cap outside the door. She had seen the shining buttons of the Mounted Police among the fur, and with a sudden chill at her heart she had stooped and felt the lining of the thick coat and the cap. They were quite cold, and then she knew to whom they must belong. If it were any other man Jennifer would have come to call her long since.
She went back to her room, sitting with the door half-open, and listening for that step. She had never seen Dick. She had not known his name until she came to Grey Wolf. Jennifer never spoke of him. But she knew the hold that he had on her daughter's heart, and she knew that she was helpless here. She, with all her love and her long years of cherishing was helpless against this unknown man who had trodden farther into Jennifer's heart than she could ever tread. She sat still in her chair, with her delicate wrinkled hands pressed together, and waited for him to come by. And when she heard the door shut she went out into the passage swiftly, so that he must pass her as he came.
She watched him as he come, walking straightly. He held his cap in his hand, and his big coat fell open, showing the dull blurr of khaki. He came as a man who knew his Way; glancing at her carelessly with bold, imperious eyes that seemed to look through her and pass on. To his knowledge he did not see her at all. He did not hear her. But he was vivid enough to her. She never forgot the sensation of his passing her; the free, swinging step; the erect head-carriage, and that rush of vitality which seemed to quicken the air about him as he moved. He turned down the angle of the passage, and she heard him go through the front door and shut it. The very clap of its shutting frightened her. That man was not made of the stuff which is easily mastered. If Jennifer had sent him away again, then there had been a battle first which her gentle heart quaked to think of.
Twice she went down to the closed door of the sitting-room, and twice she crept away again. Then, with sudden courage, she opened the door and went in. Jennifer sprang up with a sudden cry. Then, seeing her mother, she dropped back, trembling and trying to smile.
"Why, what a start you gave me, little mother," she said.
The elder mother came over, and took the cold hands and fondled them. Almost she was afraid to speak. It seemed as though her daughter were gone into a different world: a place where she could not follow; where she did not understand the language. Then, nervously, she said:
"Someone passed me just now in the passage, dear."
"Oh!" Jennifer drew in a long breath, and the colour came painfully back to her face.
"It was—it was Mr. Heriot, dear?"
"Yes, mother."
"Is he—do you expect him to come back again, Jennifer?"
"No, Mother."
Then suddenly Jennifer turned and flung her arms round her mother's neck.
"Hold me tight—tight," she sobbed. "Pretend I'm your little baby girl again, mumsie. Oh, hold me tight; mother, mother!"