Without another word Jean led the way to the door, which had
partly closed after Josephine. For a moment he paused with his
hand upon it, and then entered. Philip was close behind him. His
first glance swept the room in search of the girl. She had
disappeared with her two companions. For a moment he heard voices
beyond a second door in front of him. Then there was silence.
In wonder he stared about him, and Jean did not interrupt his
gaze. He stood in a great room whose walls were of logs and axe-
hewn timbers. It was a room forty feet long by twenty in width,
massive in its build, with walls and ceiling stained a deep brown.
In one end was a fireplace large enough to hold a pile of logs six
feet in length, and in this a small fire was smouldering. In the
centre of the room was a long, massive table, its timber carved by
the axe, and on this a lamp was burning. The floor was strewn with
fur rugs, and on the walls hung the mounted heads of beasts. These
things impressed themselves upon Philip first. It was as if he had
stepped suddenly out of the world in which he was living into the
ancient hall of a wild and half-savage thane whose bones had
turned to dust centuries ago.
Not until Jean spoke to him, and led the way through the room, was
this first impression swept back by his swift and closer
observation of detail. About him extreme age was curiously blended
with the modern. His breath stopped short when he saw in the
shadow of the farther wall a piano, with a bronze lamp suspended
from the ceiling above it. His eyes caught the shadowy outline of
cases filled with books; he saw close to the fireplace wide, low-
built divans covered with cushions; and over the door through
which they passed hung a framed copy of da Vinci's masterpiece,
"La Joconde," the Smiling Woman.
Into a dimly lighted hall he followed Jean, who paused a moment
later before another door, which he opened. Philip waited while he
struck a match and lighted a lamp. He knew at a glance that this
was to be his sleeping apartment, and as he took in its ample
comfort, the broad low bed behind its old-fashioned curtains, the
easy chairs, the small table covered with books and magazines, and
the richly furred rugs on the floor, he experienced a new and
strange feeling of restfulness and pleasure which for the moment
overshadowed his more excited sensations. Jean was already on his
knees before a fireplace touching a match to a pile of birch, and
as the inflammable bark spurted into flame and the small logs
began to crackle he rose to his feet and faced Philip. Both were
soaked to the skin. Jean's hair hung lank and wet about his face,
and his hollow cheeks were cadaverous. In spite of the hour and
the place, Philip could not restrain a laugh.
"I'm glad Josephine was thoughtful enough to come in ahead of us,
Jean," he chuckled. "We look like a couple of drowned water-rats!"
"I will bring up your sack, M'sieur," responded Jean. "If you
haven't dry clothes of your own you will find garments behind the
curtains. I think some of them will fit you. After we are warmed
and dried we will have supper."
A few moments after Jean left him an Indian woman brought him a
pail of hot water. He was half stripped and enjoying a steaming
sponge bath when Croisset returned with his dunnage sack. The
Arctic had not left him much to choose from, but behind the
curtains which Jean had pointed out to him he found a good-sized
wardrobe. He glowed with warmth and comfort when he had finished
dressing. The chill was gone from his blood. He no longer felt the
ache in his arms and back. He lighted his pipe, and for a few
moments stood with his back to the crackling fire, listening and
waiting. Through the thick walls no sound came to him. Once he
thought that he heard the closing of a distant door. Even the
night was strangely silent, and he walked to the one large window
in his room and stared out into the darkness. On this side the
edge of the forest was not far away, for he could hear the
soughing of the wind in the treetops.
For an hour he waited with growing impatience for Jean's return or
some word from Josephine. At last there came another knock at the
door. He opened it eagerly. To his disappointment neither Jean nor
the girl stood there, but the Indian woman who had brought him the
hot water, carrying in her hands a metal server covered with
steaming dishes. She moved silently past him, placed the server on
the table, and was turning to go when he spoke to her.
"Tan'se a itumuche hooyun?" he asked in Cree.
She went out as if she had not heard him, and the door closed
behind her. With growing perplexity, Philip directed his attention
to the food. This manner of serving his supper partly convinced
him that he would not see Josephine again that night. He was
hungry, and began to do justice to the contents of the dishes. In
one dish he found a piece of fruit cake and half a dozen pickles,
and he knew that at least Josephine had helped to prepare his
supper. Half an hour later the Indian woman returned as silently
as before and carried away the dishes. He followed her to the door
and stood for a few moments looking down the hall. He looked at
his watch. It was after ten o'clock. Where was Jean? he wondered.
Why had Josephine not sent some word to him--at least an
explanation telling him why she could not see him as she had
promised? Why had Croisset spoken in that strange way just before
they entered the door of Adare House? Nothing had happened, and he
was becoming more and more convinced that nothing would happen--
that night.
He turned suddenly from the door, facing the window in his room.
The next instant he stood tense and staring. A face was glued
against the pane: dark, sinister, with eyes that shone with the
menacing glare of a beast. In a flash it was gone. But in that
brief space Philip had seen enough to hold him like one turned to
stone, still staring where the face had been, his heart beating
like a hammer. As the face disappeared he had seen a hand pass
swiftly through the light, and in the hand was a pistol. It was
not this fact, nor the suddenness of the apparition, that drew the
gasping breath from his lips. It was the face, filled with a
hatred that was almost madness--the face of Jean Jacques Croisset!
Scarcely was it gone when Philip sprang to the table, snatched up
his automatic, and ran out into the hall. The end of the hall he
believed opened outdoors, and he ran swiftly in that direction,
his moccasined feet making no sound. He found a door locked with
an iron bar. It took him but a moment to throw this up, open the
door, and leap out into the night. The wind had died away, and it
was snowing. In the silence he stood and listened, his eyes trying
to find some moving shadow in the gloom. His fighting blood was
up. His one impulse now was to come face to face with Jean
Croisset and demand an explanation. He knew that if he had stood
another moment with his back to the window Jean would have killed
him. Murder was in the half-breed's eyes. His pistol was ready.
Only Philip's quick turning from the door had saved him. It was
evident that Jean had fled from the window as quickly as Philip
had run out into the hall. Or, if he had not fled, he was hiding
in the gloom of the building. At the thought that Jean might be
crouching in the shadows Philip turned suddenly and moved swiftly
and silently along the log wall of Adare House. He half expected a
shot out of the darkness, and with his thumb he pressed down the
safety lever of his automatic. He had almost reached his own
window when a sound just beyond the pale filter of light that came
out of it drew him more cautiously into the pitch darkness of the
deep shadow next the wall. In another moment he was sure. Some
other person was moving through the gloom beyond the streak of
light.
With his pistol in readiness, Philip darted through the
illuminated path. A startled cry broke out of the night, and with
that cry his hand gripped fiercely in the deep fur of a coat. In
the same breath an exclamation of astonishment came from his own
lips as he looked into the white, staring face of Josephine. His
pistol arm had dropped to his side. He believed that she had not
seen the weapon, and he thrust it in his trousers pocket.
"You, Josephine!" he gasped. "What are you doing here?"
"And you?" she counter demanded. "You have no coat, no hat ..."
Her hands gripped his arm. "I saw you run through the light. You
had a pistol."
An impulse which he could not explain prompted him to tell her a
falsehood.
"I came out--to see what the night looked like," he said. "When I
heard you in the darkness it startled me for a moment, and I drew
my pistol."
It seemed to him that her fingers clutched deeper and more
convulsively into his arm.
"You have seen no one else?" she asked.
Again he was prompted to keep his secret.
"Is it possible that any one else is awake and roaming about at
this hour?" he laughed. "I was just returning to my room to go to
bed, Josephine. I thought that you had forgotten me. And Jean--
where is he?"
"We hadn't forgotten you," shivered Josephine. "But unexpected
things have happened since we came to Adare House to-night. I was
on my way to you. And Jean is back in the forest. Listen!"
From perhaps half a mile away there came the howl of a dog, and
scarcely had that sound died away when there followed it the full-
throated voice of the pack whose silence Philip had wondered at. A
strange cry broke from Josephine.
"They are coming!" she almost sobbed. "Quick, Philip! My last hope
of saving you is gone, and now you must be good to me--if you care
at all!" She seized him by the hand and half ran with him to the
door through which they had entered a short time before. In the
great room she threw off her hood and the long fur cape that
covered her, and then Philip saw that she had not dressed for the
night and the storm. She had on a thin, shimmering dress of white,
and her hair was coiled in loose golden masses about her head. On
her breast, just below her white, bare throat, she wore a single
red rose. It did not seem remarkable that she should be wearing a
rose. To him the wonderful thing was that the rose, the clinging
beauty of her dress, the glowing softness of her hair had been for
him, and that something unexpected had taken her out into the
night. Before he could speak she led him swiftly through the hall
beyond, and did not pause until they had entered through another
door and stood in the room which he knew was her room. In a glance
he took in its exquisite femininity. Here, too, the bed was set
behind curtains, and the curtains were closely drawn.
She had faced him now, standing a few steps away. She was deathly
white, but her eyes had never met his more unflinchingly or more
beautiful. Something in her attitude restrained him from
approaching nearer. He looked at her, and waited. When she spoke
her voice was low and calm. He knew that at last she had come to
the hour of her greatest fight, and in that moment he was more
unnerved than she.
"In a few minutes my mother and father will be here, Philip," she
said. "The letter Jean brought me back there, where we first saw
each other, came up by way of Wollaston House, and told me I need
not expect them for a number of weeks. That was what made me happy
for a little while. They were in Montreal, and I didn't want them
to return. You will understand why--very soon. But my father
changed his mind, and almost with the mailing of the letter he and
my mother started home by way of Fond du Lac. Only an hour ago an
Indian ran to us with the news that they were coming down the
river. They are out there now--less than half a mile away--with
Jean and the dogs!"
She turned a little from him, facing the bed.
"You remember--I told you that I had spent a year in Montreal,"
she went on. "I was there--alone--when it happened. See--"
She moved to the bed and gently drew the curtains aside. Scarcely
breathing, Philip followed her.
"It's my baby," she whispered, "My little boy."
He could not see her face. She bowed her head and continued
softly, as if fearing to awaken the baby asleep on the bed:
"No one knows--but Jean. My mother came first, and then my father.
I lied to them. I told them that I was married, and that my
husband had gone into the North. I came home with the baby--to
meet this man I called Paul Darcambal, and whom they thought was
my husband. I didn't want it to happen down there, but I planned
on telling them the truth when we all got back in our forests. But
after I returned I found that--I couldn't. Perhaps you may
understand. Up here--among the forest people--the mother of a
baby--like that--is looked upon as the most terrible thing in the
world. She is called La bete noir--the black beast. Day by day I
came to realize that I couldn't tell the truth, that I must live a
great lie to save other hearts from being crushed as life has been
crushed out of mine. I thought of telling them that my husband had
died up here--in the North. And I was fearing suspicion ... the
chance that my father might learn the untruth of it, when you
came. That is all, Philip. You understand now. You know why--some
day--you must go away and never come back. It is to save the boy,
my father, my mother, and me!"
Not once in her terrible recital had the girl's voice broke. And
now, as if bowing herself in silent prayer, she kneeled beside the
bed and laid her head close to the baby's. Philip stood
motionless, his unseeing eyes staring straight through the log
walls and the black night to a city a thousand miles away. He
understood now. Josephine's story was not the strangest thing in
the world after all. It was perhaps the oldest of all stories. He
had heard it a hundred times before, but never had it left him
quite so cold and pulseless as he was now. And yet, even as the
palace of the wonderful ideal he had builded crumbled about him in
ruin, there rose up out of the dust of it a thing new-born and
tangible for him. Slowly his eyes turned to the beautiful head
bowed in its attitude of prayer. The blood began to surge back
into his heart. His hands unclenched. She had told him that he
would hate her, that he would want to leave her when he heard the
story of her despair. And instead of that he wanted to kneel
beside her now and take her close in his arms, and whisper to her
that the sun had not set for them, but that it had only begun to
rise.
And then, as he took a step toward her, there flashed through his
brain like a disturbing warning the words with which she had told
him that he would never know the real cause of her grief. "YOU MAY
GUESS, BUT YOU WOULD NOT GUESS THE TRUTH IF YOU LIVED A THOUSAND
YEARS." And could this that he had heard, and this that he looked
upon be anything but the truth? Another step and he was at her
side. For a moment all barriers were swept from between them. She
did not resist him as he clasped her close to his breast. He
kissed her upturned face again and again, and his voice kept
whispering: "I love you, my Josephine--I love you--I love you--"
Suddenly there came to them sounds from out of the night. A door
opened, and through the hall there came the great, rumbling voice
of a man, half laughter, half shout; and then there were other
voices, the slamming of the door, and THE voice again, this time
in a roar that reached to the farthest walls of Adare House.
"Ho, Mignonne--Ma Josephine!"
And Philip held Josephine still closer and whispered:
"I love you!"