For a space there was silence between Carrigan and St. Pierre's wife.
He knew what she was thinking as she stood with her back to the door,
waiting half defiantly, her cheeks still flushed, her eyes bright with
the anticipation of battle. She was ready to fight for the broken
creature on the other side of the door. She expected him to give no
quarter in his questioning of her, to corner her if he could, to demand
of her why the deformed giant had spoken the name of the man he was
after, Black Roger Audemard. The truth hammered in David's brain. It
had not been a delusion of his fevered mind after all; it was not a
possible deception of the half-breed's, as he had thought last night.
Chance had brought him face to face with the mystery of Black Roger.
St. Pierre's wife, waiting for him to speak, was in some way associated
with that mystery, and the cripple was asking for the man McVane had
told him to bring in dead or alive! Yet he did not question her. He
turned to the window and looked out from where Marie-Anne had stood a
few moments before.
The day was glorious. On the far shore he saw life where last night's
camp had been. Men were moving about close to the water, and a York
boat was putting out slowly into the stream. Close under the window
moved a canoe with a single occupant. It was Andre, the Broken Man.
With powerful strokes he was paddling across the river. His deformity
was scarcely noticeable in the canoe. His bare head and black beard
shone in the sun, and between his great shoulders his head looked more
than ever to Carrigan like the head of a carven god. And this man, like
a mighty tree stricken by lightning, his mind gone, was yet a thing
that was more than mere flesh and blood to Marie-Anne Boulain!
David turned toward her. Her attitude was changed. It was no longer one
of proud defiance. She had expected to defend herself from something,
and he had given her no occasion for defense. She did not try to hide
the fact from him, and he nodded toward the window.
"He is going away in a canoe. I am afraid you didn't want me to see
him, and I am sorry I happened to be here when he came."
"I made no effort to keep him away, M'sieu David. Perhaps I wanted you
to see him. And I thought, when you did--" She hesitated.
"You expected me to crucify you, if necessary, to learn the truth of
what he knows about Roger Audemard," he said. "And you were ready to
fight back. But I am not going to question you unless you give me
permission."
"I am glad," she said in a low voice. "I am beginning to have faith in
you, M'sieu David. You have promised not to try to escape, and I
believe you. Will you also promise not to ask me questions, which I can
not answer--until St. Pierre comes?"
"I will try."
She came up to him slowly and stood facing him, so near that she could
have reached out and put her hands on his shoulders.
"St. Pierre has told me a great deal about the Scarlet Police," she
said, looking at him quietly and steadily. "He says that the men who
wear the red jackets never play low tricks, and that they come after a
man squarely and openly. He says they are men, and many times he has
told me wonderful stories of the things they have done. He calls it
'playing the game.' And I'm going to ask you, M'sieu David, will you
play square with me? If I give you the freedom of the bateau, of the
boats, even of the shore, will you wait for St. Pierre and play the
rest of the game out with him, man to man?"
Carrigan bowed his head slightly. "Yes, I will wait and finish the game
with St. Pierre."
He saw a quick throb come and go in her white throat, and with a
sudden, impulsive movement she held out her hand to him. For a moment
he held it close. Her little fingers tightened about his own, and the
warm thrill of them set his blood leaping with the thing he was
fighting down. She was so near that he could feel the throb of her
body. For an instant she bowed her head, and the sweet perfume of her
hair was in his nostrils, the lustrous beauty of it close under his
lips.
Gently she withdrew her hand and stood back from him. To Carrigan she
was like a young girl now. It was the loveliness of girlhood he saw in
the flush of her face and in the gladness that was flaming unashamed in
her eyes.
"I am not frightened any more," she exclaimed, her voice trembling a
bit. "When St. Pierre comes, I shall tell him everything. And then you
may ask the questions, and he will answer. And he will not cheat! He
will play square. You will love St. Pierre, and you will forgive me for
what happened behind the rock!"
She made a little gesture toward the door. "Everything is free to you
out there now," she added. "I shall tell Bateese and the others. When
we are tied up, you may go ashore. And we will forget all that has
happened, M'sieu David. We will forget until St. Pierre comes."
"St. Pierre!" he groaned. "If there were no St. Pierre!"
"I should be lost," she broke in quickly. "I should want to die!"
Through the open window came the sound of a voice. It was the weird
monotone of Andre, the Broken Man. Marie-Anne went to the window. And
David, following her, looked over her head, again so near that his lips
almost touched her hair. Andre had come back. He was watching two York
boats that were heading for the bateau.
"You heard him asking for Black Roger Audemard," she said. "It is
strange. I know how it must have shocked you when he stood like that in
the door. His mind, like his body, is a wreck, M'sieu David. Years ago,
after a great storm, St. Pierre found him in the forest. A tree had
fallen on him. St. Pierre carried him in on his shoulders. He lived,
but he has always been like that. St. Pierre loves him, and poor Andre
worships St. Pierre and follows him about like a dog. His brain is
gone. He does not know what his name is, and we call him Andre. And
always, day and night, he is asking that same question, 'Has any one
seen Black Roger Audemard?' Sometime--if you will, M'sieu David--I
should like to have you tell me what it is so terrible that you know
about Roger Audemard."
The York boats were half-way across the river, and from them came a
sudden burst of wild song. David could make out six men in each boat,
their oars flashing in the morning sun to the rhythm of their chant.
Marie-Anne looked up at him suddenly, and in her face and eyes he saw
what the starry gloom of evening had half hidden from him in those
thrilling moments when they shot through the rapids of the Holy Ghost.
She was girl now. He did not think of her as woman. He did not think of
her as St. Pierre's wife. In that upward glance of her eyes was
something that thrilled him to the depth of his soul. She seemed, for a
moment, to have dropped a curtain from between herself and him.
Her red lips trembled, she smiled at him, and then she faced the river
again, and he leaned a little forward, so that a breath of wind floated
a shimmering tress of her hair against his cheek. An irresistible
impulse seized upon him. He leaned still nearer to her, holding his
breath, until his lips softly touched one of the velvety coils of her
hair. And then he stepped back. Shame swept over him. His heart rose
and choked him, and his fists were clenched at his side. She had not
noticed what he had done, and she seemed to him like a bird yearning to
fly out through the window, throbbing with the desire to answer the
chanting song that came over the water. And then she was smiling up
again into his face hardened with the struggle which he was making with
himself.
"My people are happy," she cried. "Even in storm they laugh and sing.
Listen, m'sieu. They are singing La Derniere Domaine. That is our song.
It is what we call our home, away up there in the lost wilderness where
people never come--the Last Domain. Their wives and sweethearts and
families are up there, and they are happy in knowing that today we
shall travel a few miles nearer to them. They are not like your people
in Montreal and Ottawa and Quebec, M'sieu David. They are like
children. And yet they are glorious children!"
She ran to the wall and took down the banner of St. Pierre Boulain.
"St. Pierre is behind us," she explained. "He is coming down with a
raft of timber such as we can not get in our country, and we are
waiting for him. But each day we must float down with the stream a few
miles nearer the homes of my people. It makes them happier, even though
it is but a few miles. They are coming now for my bateau. We shall
travel slowly, and it will be wonderful on a day like this. It will do
you good to come outside, M'sieu David--with me. Would you care for
that? Or would you rather be alone?"
In her face there was no longer the old restraint. On her lips was the
witchery of a half-smile; in her eyes a glow that flamed the blood in
his veins. It was not a flash of coquetry. It was something deeper and
warmer than that, something real--a new Marie-Anne Boulain telling him
plainly that she wanted him to come. He did not know that his hands
were still clenched at his side. Perhaps she knew. But her eyes did not
leave his face, eyes that were repeating the invitation of her lips,
openly asking him not to refuse.
"I shall be happy to come," he said.
The words fell out of him numbly. He scarcely heard them or knew what
he was saying, yet he was conscious of the unnatural note in his voice.
He did not know he was betraying himself beyond that, did not see the
deepening of the wild-rose flush in the cheeks of St. Pierre's wife. He
picked up his pipe from the table and moved to accompany her.
"You must wait a little while," she said, and her hand rested for an
instant upon his arm. Its touch was as light as the touch of his lips
had been against her shining hair, but he felt it in every nerve of his
body. "Nepapinas is making a special lotion for your hurt. I will send
him in, and then you may come."
The wild chant of the rivermen was near as she turned to the door. From
it she looked back at him swiftly.
"They are happy, M'sieu David," she repeated softly. "And I, too, am
happy. I am no longer afraid. And the world is beautiful again. Can you
guess why? It is because you have given me your promise, M'sieu David,
and because I believe you!"
And then she was gone.
For many minutes he did not move. The chanting of the rivermen, a
sudden wilder shout, the voices of men, and after that the grating of
something alongside the bateau came to him like sounds from another
world. Within himself there was a crash greater than that of physical
things. It was the truth breaking upon him, truth surging over him like
the waves of a sea, breaking down the barriers he had set up,
inundating him with a force that was mightier than his own will. A
voice in his soul was crying out the truth--that above all else in the
world he wanted to reach out his arms to this glorious creature who was
the wife of St. Pierre, this woman who had tried to kill him and was
sorry. He knew that it was not desire for beauty. It was the worship
which St. Pierre himself must have for this woman who was his wife. And
the shock of it was like a conflagration sweeping through him, leaving
him dead and shriven, like the crucified trees standing in the wake of
a fire. A breath that was almost a cry came from him, and his fists
knotted until they were purple. She was St. Pierre's wife! And he,
David Carrigan, proud of his honor, proud of the strength that made him
man, had dared covet her in this hour when her husband was gone! He
stared at the closed door, beginning to cry out against himself, and
over him there swept slowly and terribly another thing--the shame of
his weakness, the hopelessness of the thing that for a space had eaten
into him and consumed him.
And as he stared, the door opened, and Nepapinas came in.