Scarcely had he crossed the threshold when an exclamation of
surprise rose to Philip's lips. A few minutes before he had left
his room even uncomfortably warm. A cold draught of air struck his
face now, and the light was out. He remembered that he had left
the lamp burning. He groped his way through the darkness to the
table before he lighted a match.
As he touched the flame to the wick he glanced toward the window.
It was open. A film of snow had driven through and settled upon
the rug under it. Replacing the chimney, he took a step or two
toward the window. Then he stopped, and stared at the floor. Some
one had entered his room through the open window and had gone to
the door opening into the hall. At each step had fallen a bit of
snow, and close to the door was a space of the bare floor soppy
and stained. At that point the intruder had stood for some moments
without moving.
For several seconds Philip stared at the evidences of a prowling
visitor without making a move himself. It was not without a
certain thrill of uneasiness that he went to the window and closed
it. It did not take him long to assure himself that nothing in the
room had been touched. He could find no other marks of feet except
those which led directly from the window to the door, and this
fact was sufficient proof that whoever had visited his room had
come as a listener and a spy and not as a thief.
It occurred to Philip now that he had found his door unlatched and
slightly ajar when he entered. That the eavesdropper had seen them
in the hall and had possibly overheard a part of their
conversation he was quite certain from the fact that the window
had been left open in a hurried flight.
For some time the impulse was strong in him to acquaint both
Josephine and her father with what had happened, and with Jean
Croisset's apparent treachery. He did not need to ask himself if
it was the half-breed who had stolen into his room. He was as
certain of that as he was of the identity of the face he had seen
at the window some time before. And yet something held him from
communicating these events of the night to the master of Adare
House and the girl. He was becoming more and more convinced that
there existed an unaccountable and mysterious undercurrent of
tragic possibilities at Adare House of which Josephine was almost
ignorant, and her father entirely so. Josephine's motherhood and
the secret she was guarding were not the only things that were
clouding his mental horizon now. There was something else. And he
believed that Jean was the key to the situation.
He felt a clammy chill creep over him as he asked himself how
closely Jean Jacques Croisset himself was associated with the girl
he loved. It was a thought that almost made him curse himself for
giving it birth. And yet it clung to him like a grim and haunting
spectre that he would have crushed if he could. Josephine's
confession of motherhood had not made him love her less. In those
terrible moments when she had bared her soul to him, his own soul
had suffered none of the revulsion with which he might have
sympathized in others. It was as if she had fallen at his feet,
fluttering in the agony of a terrible wound, a thing as pure as
the heavens, hurt for him to cherish in his greater strength--such
was his love. And the thought that Jean loved her, and that a
jealousy darker than night was burning all that was human out of
his breast, was a possibility which he found unpleasant to admit
to himself.
So deeply was he absorbed in these thoughts that he forgot any
immediate danger that might be threatening himself. He passed and
repassed the window, smoking his pipe, and fighting with himself
to hit upon some other tangible reason for Jean's unexpected
change of heart. He could not forget his first impression of the
dark-faced half-breed, nor the grip in which they had pledged
their fealty. He had accepted Jean as one of ten thousand--a man
he would have trusted to the ends of the earth, and yet he
recalled moments now when he had seen strange fires smouldering
far back in the forest man's eyes. The change in Jean alone he
felt that he might have diagnosed, but almost simultaneously with
his discovery of this change he had met Adare's wife--and she had
puzzled him even more than the half-breed.
Restlessly he moved to his door again, opened it, and looked down
the hall. The door of Josephine's room was closed, and he
reentered his room. For a moment he stood facing the window. In
the same instant there came the report of a rifle and the crashing
of glass. A shower of shot-like particles struck his face. He
heard a dull smash behind him, and then a stinging, red-hot pain
shot across his arm, as if a whiplash had seared his naked flesh.
He heard the shot, the crashing glass, the strike of the bullet
behind him before he felt the pain--before he reeled back toward
the wall. His heel caught in a rug and he fell. He knew that he
was not badly hurt, but he crouched low, and with his right hand
drew his automatic and levelled it at the window.
Never in his life had his blood leaped more quickly through his
body than it did now. It was not merely excitement--the knowledge
that he had been close to death, and had escaped. From out of the
darkness Jean Croisset had shot at him like a coward. He did not
feel the burn of the scratch on his arm as he jumped to his feet.
Once more he ran swiftly through the hall. At the end door he
looked back. Apparently the shot had not alarmed the occupants of
Josephine's room, to whom the report of a rifle--even at night--
held no special significance.
Another moment and Philip was outside. It had stopped snowing, and
the clouds were drifting away from under the moon. Crouched low,
his pistol level at his side, he ran swiftly in the direction from
which the shot must have come. The moon revealed the dark edge of
the forest a hundred yards away, and he was sure that his
attempted murderer had stood somewhere between Adare House and the
timber when he fired. He was not afraid of a second shot. Even
caution was lost in his mad desire to catch Jean red-handed and
choke a confession of several things from his lips. If Jean had
suddenly risen out of the snow he would not have used his pistol
unless forced to do so. He wanted to be hand to hand with the
treacherous half-breed, and his breath came in panting eagerness
as he ran.
Suddenly he stopped short. He had struck the trail. Here Croisset
had stood, fifty yards from his window, when he fired. The snow
was beaten down, and from the spot his retreating footsteps led
toward the forest. Like a dog Philip followed the trail. The first
timber was thinned by the axe, and the moon lighted up the white
spaces ahead of him. He was half across the darker wall of the
spruce when his heart gave a sudden jump. He had heard the snarl
of a dog, the lash of a whip, a man's low voice cursing the beast
he was striking. The sounds came from the dense cover of the
spruce, and told him that Jean was not looking for immediate
pursuit. He slipped in among the shadows quietly, and a few steps
brought him to a smaller open space where a few trees had been
cut. In this little clearing a slim dark figure of a man was
straightening out the tangled traces of a sledge-team.
Philip could not see his face, but he knew that it was Jean. It
was Jean's figure, Jean's movement, his low, sharp voice as he
spoke to the dogs. Man and huskies were not twenty steps from him.
With a tense breath Philip replaced his pistol in its holster. He
did not want to kill, and he possessed a proper respect for the
hair-trigger mechanism of his automatic. In the fight he
anticipated with Jean the weapon would be safer in its holster
than in his hand. Jean was at present unarmed, except for his
hunting-knife. His rifle leaned against a tree, and in another
moment Philip was between the gun and the half-breed.
One of the sledge dogs betrayed him. At its low and snarling
warning the half-breed whirled about with the alertness of a lynx,
and he was half ready when Philip launched himself at his throat.
They went down free of the dogs, the forest man under. One of
Philip's hands had reached his enemy's throat, but with a swift
movement of his arm the half-breed wrenched it off and slipped out
from under his assailant with the agility of an eel. Both were on
their feet in an instant, facing each other in the tiny moonlit
arena a dozen feet from the silent and watchful dogs.
Even now Philip could not see the half-breed's features because of
a hood drawn closely about his face. The "breed" had made no
effort to draw a weapon, and Philip flung himself upon him again.
Thus in open battle his greater physical strength and advantage of
fifty pounds in weight would have won for Philip. But the forest
man's fighting is filled with the elusive ermine's trickery and
the lithe quickness of the big, fur-padded cat of the trap-lines.
The half-breed made no effort to evade Philip's assault. He met
the shock of attack fairly, and went down with him. But this time
his back was to the watchful semicircle of dogs, and with a sharp,
piercing command he pitched back among them, dragging Philip with
him. Too late Philip realized what the cry meant. He tried to
fling himself out of reach of the threatening fangs, and freed one
hand to reach for his pistol. This saved him from the dogs, but
gave the half-breed his opportunity. Again he was on his feet, the
butt of his dog whip in his hand. As the moonlight glinted on the
barrel of the automatic, he brought the whip down with a crash on
Philip's head--and then again and again, and Philip pitched
backward into the snow.
He was not wholly unconscious. He knew that as soon as he had
fallen the half-breed had turned again to the dogs. He could hear
him as he straightened out the traces. In a subconscious sort of
way, Philip wondered why he did not take advantage of his
opportunity and finish what he had failed to do with the bullet
through the window. Philip heard him run back for his gun, and
tried to struggle to his knees. Instead of the shot he half
expected there came the low "Hoosh--hoosh--marche!" of the forest
man's voice. Dogs and sledge moved. He fought himself up and
swayed on his knees, staring after the retreating shadows. He saw
his automatic in the snow and crawled to it. It was another minute
before he could stand on his feet, and then he was dizzy. He
staggered to a tree and for a space leaned against it.
It was some minutes before he was steady enough to walk, and by
that time he knew that it would be futile to pursue the half-breed
and his swift-footed dogs, weakened and half dressed as he was.
Slowly he returned to Adare House, cursing himself for not having
used his pistol to compel Jean's surrender. He acknowledged that
he had been a fool, and that he had deserved what he got. The hall
was still empty when he reentered it. His adventure had roused no
one, and with a feeling of relief he went to his room.
If the walls had fallen about his ears he could not have received
a greater shock than when he entered through the door.
Seated in a chair close to the table, looking at him calmly as he
entered, was Jean Jacques Croisset!