Hal buried his face in his hands and groaned. He looked about for some way of escape, but there stood the weak sick man, inevitable and unanswerable. He felt bewildered but resentful. Why shouldn't he be happy? Why should he be expected to give up his one chance, the only chance he had ever had, would ever have?
"We'll go away into the mountains," he exclaimed, "away from your artificial rules and regulations! We'll go away."
"You can't go where obligation will not meet you."
"Why should I let you decide for me what my obligations are?" he said rudely, fiercely.
"Now you're a savage, but you've got white blood in your veins, blood that has bowed the knee to duty, bowed the back to burdens, bowed the head to God. Now I thank heaven you're a half-breed. You couldn't go back to the blanket savage if you wanted to. You've got to live up to your higher self. You have assumed obligations to these two women. You can't avoid the consequences. The heart of this Indian woman has gone out to you because you are part of a social order to which she aspires, that represents to her her better self. You can't drag her down and back to the blanket Indian. She would hate you. If you are brutal I must say brutal things to you. You can't force her to apologize to her children, to tell them they have no standing before the law and before society; that they face the inevitable social order with an inevitable stain. You can't flee from obligation. No man liveth to himself nor for himself. And this other woman—you have in the past assumed obligations to her. They have become irksome. You say you have a right to be free. Well, then, you must prove it. I don't believe in divorce, but that is a matter between a man and his Maker. Happiness, permanent happiness, is worth fighting for, worth waiting for. If you stay here you will steal it and pay the penalty of the thief, a penalty that will fall heaviest upon those you love best in the world. Again I say, you couldn't keep this woman if they would let you. She must go away or you must."
McCloud looked at the lad, silent but unconvinced, and then he lifted up his heart in secret prayer that God would keep this soul unspoiled.
CHAPTER XV
"Howd'y, Parson! Hello, boy!"
The diversion made by the appearance of McShay was a most welcome one to the youth who felt "baffled and beaten and blown about by the winds of the wilderness of doubt." Hal felt helpless in the hands of McCloud with his metaphysical verities, so fixed, unalterable, and unanswerable, but McShay carried with him something that was tangible and workable. Shadows fled before him. Subtleties disappeared before the sun of his genial optimism, or materialized in rain or snow or ice, assumed a form that could be reckoned with. The presence of the man of action was an enormous relief to Hal. McShay's intuitions were quick and he no longer spoke to the clergyman of his health, but he swept him with a searching glance and took his hand gently in his iron grip as he would have taken the hand of a woman.
"You sent me word you needed help," he said to Hal.