A loneliness deeper than he had ever known--a yearning that was almost
pain, oppressed Philip as he left Lac Bain behind him. Half a mile from
the post he stopped under a shelter of dense spruce, and stood listening
as there came to him faintly the distant howling of a dog. After all,
had he done right? He laughed harshly and his hands clenched as he
thought of Bucky Nome. He had done right by him. But the skull--Mrs.
Becker--was that right? Like a flash there came to him out of the
darkness a picture of the scene beside the fire--of Mrs. Becker and the
colonel, of the woman's golden head resting on her husband's shoulder,
her sweet blue eyes filled with all the truth and glory of womanhood as
she had looked up into his grizzled face. And then there took its place
the scene beside the fire in the factor's room. He saw the woman's
flushed cheeks as she listened to the low voice of Bucky Nome, he saw
again what looked like yielding softness in her eyes--the grayish pallor
in the colonel's face as he had looked upon the flirtation. Yes, he
had done right. She had recovered herself in time, but she had taken a
little bit of life from the colonel, and from him. She had broken his
ideal--the ideal he had always hoped for, and had sought for, but had
never found, and he told himself that now she was no better than the
girl of the hyacinth letter, whose golden beauty and eyes as clear as an
angel's had concealed this same deceit that wrecked men's lives. M'sieur
Janette's clean, white skull and the story of how and why M'sieur
Janette had died would not be too great a punishment for her.
He resumed his journey, striving to concentrate his mind on other
things. Seven or eight miles to the south and west was the cabin of
Jacques Pierrot, a half-breed, who had a sledge and dogs. He would hire
Jacques to accompany him on his patrol in place of Bucky Nome. Then
he would return to Nelson House and send in his report of Bucky Nome's
desertion, since he knew well enough after the final remarks of that
gentleman that he did not intend to sever his connection with the
Northwest Mounted in the regular way. After that--He shrugged his
shoulders as he thought of the fourteen months' of service still ahead
of him. Until now his adventure as a member of the Royal Mounted had not
grown monotonous for an hour. Excitement, action, fighting against odds,
had been the spice of life to him, and he struggled to throw off
the change that had taken hold of him the moment he had opened the
hyacinth-scented letter of Mrs. Becker. “You're a fool,” he argued.
“You're as big a fool as Bucky Nome. My God--you--Phil Steele--letting a
married woman upset you like this!”
It was near midnight when he came to Pierrot's cabin, but a light was
still burning in the half-breed's log home. Philip kicked off his snow
shoes and knocked at the door. In a moment Pierrot opened it, stepped
back, and stared at the white figure that came in out of the storm.
“Mon Dieu--it ees you--Mee-sair Philip!”
Philip held out his hand to Jacques, and shot a quick glance about him.
There had been a change in the cabin since he had visited it last. One
of Pierrot's hands was done up in a sling, his face was thin and pale,
and his dark eyes were sunken and lusterless. In the little wilderness
home there was an air of desertion and neglect, and Philip wondered
where Pierrot's rosy-cheeked, black-haired wife and his half dozen
children had gone.
“Mon Dieu--it ees you, Mee-sair Philip,” cried Pierrot again, his face
lighting up with pleasure. “You come late. You are hongree?”
“I've had supper,” replied Philip. “I've just come from Lac Bain.
But what's up, old man--?” He pointed to Pierrot's hand, and looked
questionably about the cabin again.
“Eh--Iowla--my wife--she is at Churchill, over on the bay,” groaned
Jacques. “And so are the children. What! You did not hear at Lac Bain?
Iowla is taken seek--ver' seek--with a strange thing which--ugh!--has to
be fixed with a knife, Mee-sair Philip. An' so I take her to the doctor
over at Churchill, an' he fix her--an' she is growing well now, an' will
soon come home. She keep the children with her. She say they mak'
her think of Jacques, on his trap-line. Eh--it ees lonely--dam'--dam'
lonely, and I have been gone from my Iowla but two weeks to-morrow.”
“You have been with her at Fort Churchill?” asked Philip, taking off his
pack and coat.
“Oui, M'sieur,” said Jacques, falling into his French. “I have been
there since November. What! They did not tell you at Lac Bain?”
“No--they did not tell me. But I was there but a few hours, Jacques.
Listen--” He pulled out his pipe and began filling it, with his back to
the stove. “You saw people--strangers--at Fort Churchill, Jacques? They
came over on the London ship, and among them there was a woman--”
Pierrot's pale face flashed up with sudden animation.
“Ah--zee angel!” he cried. “That is what my Iowla called her, M'sieur.
See!” He pointed to his bandaged hand. “Wan day that bete--the Indian
dog of mine--did that, an' w'en I jumped up from the snow in front
of the company's store, the blood running from me, I see her standing
there, white an' scared. An' then she run to me with a little scream,
an' tear something from her neck, an' tie it round my hand. Then she go
with me to my cabin, and every day after that she come to see my Iowla
an' the children. She wash little Pierre, an' cut his hair. She wash
Jean an' Mabelle. She laugh an' sing an' hol' the baby, an' my Iowla
laugh an' sing; an' she takes down my Iowla's hair, which is so long
that it falls to her knees, an' does it up in a wonderful way an' says
she would give everything she got if she could have that hair. An' my
Iowla laugh at her, because her hair is like an angel's--like fire w'en
the sun is on it; an' my Iowla tak' hers down, all red an' gold, an' do
it up in the Cree way. And w'en she brings the man with her--he laughs
an' plays with the kids, an' says he knows the doctor and that there
will be nothing to pay for all that he is done. Ah--she ees wan
be-e-eautiful-l-l angel! An' this--this is w'at she tied around my
hand.”
With new life Pierrot went to a covered box nailed against one of the
log walls and a moment later placed in Philip's hands a long, white,
silken neck-scarf. Once more there rose to his nostrils the sweet, faint
scent of hyacinth, and with a sudden low cry Philip crushed the dainty
fabric in a mass to his face. In that moment it seemed as though the
sweetness of the woman herself was with him, stirring him at last to
confess the truth--the thing which he had fought against so fiercely in
those few hours at Lac Bain; and the knowledge that he had surrendered
to himself, that in going from Lac Bain he was leaving all that the
world held for him in the way of woman and love, drew his breath from
him in another broken, stifled cry.
When he lowered the scarf his face was white. Pierrot was staring at
him.
“It makes me think--of home,” he explained lamely. “Sometimes I get
lonely, too. There's a girl--down there--who wears a scarf like this,
and what she wears smells like a flower, just as this does--”
“Oui, I understand,” said Pierrot softly. “It is the way I feel when my
Iowla is gone.”
He replaced the scarf in the box, and when he returned to the stove
Philip explained why he had come to his cabin. With Pierrot's promise
to accompany him with dogs and sledge on his patrol the next day he
prepared to go to bed. Pierrot also was undressing, and Philip said to
him casually,
“This woman--at Churchill--Jacques--what if some one should tell you
that she is not so much of an angel after all--that she is, perhaps,
something like--like the woman over at Lac la Biche, who ran away with
the Englishman?”
Pierrot straightened as though Philip had thrust a knife-point into his
back. He broke forth suddenly into French.
“I would call him a liar, M'sieur,” he cried fiercely. “I would call him
a liar, once-twice--three times, and then if he said it again I would
fight him. Mon Dieu, but it would be no sin to kill one with a mouth
like that!”
Philip was conscious of the hot blood rushing to his face as he bent
over his bunk. The depths of Pierrot's faith shamed him, and he crawled
silently between the blankets and turned his face to the wall. Pierrot
extinguished the light, and a little later Philip could hear his deep
breathing. But sleep refused to close his own eyes, and he lay on his
back, painfully awake. In spite of the resolution he had made to
think no more of the woman at Lac Bain, his mind swept him back to her
irresistibly. He recalled every incident that had occurred, every word
that she had spoken, since he had first looked upon her beautiful
face out on the Churchill trail. He could find nothing but purity and
sweetness until he came with her for that fatal hour or two into the
company of Bucky Nome. And then, again, his blood grew hot. But--after
all--was there not some little excuse for her? He thought of the
hundreds of women he had known, and wondered if there was one among them
all who had not at some time fallen into this same little error as Mrs.
Becker. For the first time he began to look at himself. Mrs. Becker had
laughed with Bucky Nome, her cheeks had grown a little flushed, her eyes
had shone radiantly--but were those things a sin? Had those same eyes
not looked up into his own, filled with a sweetness that thrilled him,
when he bent over her beside the fire out on the Churchill trail? Was
there not that same lovely flush in her face when his lips had almost
touched her hair? And had not the colonel's sudden return brought a
flush into both their faces? He smiled to himself, and for a moment he
thrilled ecstatically. The reaction came like a shock. In an instant
other scenes--other faces--flashed upon him, and again he saw the
luring, beautiful face of Eileen Hawkins, who smiled on men as Mrs.
Becker had smiled on Bucky Nome and on him.
He closed his eyes and tried to force himself into sleep, but failed.
At last he rose silently from his bunk, filled his pipe, and sat down
in the darkness beside the stove. The storm had increased to a gale,
wailing and moaning over the cabin outside, and the sound carried
him back to the last night in the cabin far to the south, when he had
destroyed the hyacinth-scented letter. The thought of the letter moved
him restlessly. He listened to Pierrot's breathing, and knew that the
half-breed was asleep. Then he rose to his feet and laid his pipe on the
table. A curious feeling of guilt came over him as he moved toward
the box in which Jacques had placed the silken scarf. His breath came
quickly; in the dark his eyes shone; a tingling thrill of strange
pleasure shot through him as his fingers touched the thing for which
they were searching. He drew the scarf out, and returned to the stove
with it, crushing it in both his hands. The sweetness of it came to him
again like the woman's breath. It was the sweetness of her hair, of the
golden coils massed in the firelight; a part of the woman herself,
of her glorious eyes, her lips, her face--and suddenly he crushed the
fabric to his own face, and stood there, trembling in the darkness,
while Jacques Pierrot slept and the storm wailed and moaned over his
head. For he knew--now--that he would do more for this woman than
Jacques Pierrot could ever do; more, perhaps, than even the colonel,
her husband, would do. His heart seemed bursting with a new and terrible
pain, and the truth at last seemed to rise and choke him. He loved her.
He loved this woman, the wife of another man. He loved her as he had
never dreamed that he could love a woman, and with the scarf still
smothering his lips and face he stood for many minutes, silent and
motionless, gathering himself slowly from out of the appalling depths
into which he had allowed himself to plunge.
Then he folded the scarf, and instead of returning it to the box, put it
in one of the pockets of his coat.
“Pierrot won't care,” he excused himself. “And it's the only thing,
little girl--the only thing--I'll ever have--of you.”