“—and he was strong and kind and immovable in his goodness, no matter what I did or said. And his faithfulness to my father—there aren’t any words for that. But you remember—Bella, sit close—mother told you about the hermit.”
“The hermit?”
“The strange man they all thought had found the Mother Lode.”
Step by step, moment by moment, she went through those hours at Polaris, though there was little need to take Bella farther than the threshold of the hut.
She held up two shaking hands, and, “I know! I know!” she whispered. “Before you open the door, before you knock—I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Go on,” said Bella, with an intensity of quietness. And like that to the end—looking more than ever a spirit, and like a spirit seeming to have no human heart for breaking, Bella listened with wide, far-looking eyes that half the time were tearless.
It was Hildegarde who broke down when she told how at the last, Ky and she had left him. When her choked voice failed: “Of course, I know the end,” said Bella, and they held each other fast, sitting there a long time with no word spoken.
At last Hildegarde felt the small hands loose their hold. Bella stood up. And now she was walking up and down the room. At last, as by a chance, her eyes found Hildegarde, and a great gentleness came into the little face. She came back to the window and stood close against her friend.
Hildegarde lifted her head. “You say you know the end, but you don’t quite. Louis came calling me to hurry,” and she told of those few minutes on the beach. “I didn’t realize I was ruining my life. I went on insisting. Yes, Jack Galbraith didn’t die deserted, for I sent him in his last hour my best chance of happiness. I clung to the side of the boat and watched Louis cross the beach with Reddy at his heels. Ky was crouching at the stern with her black muzzle turned to the shore, howling, howling. The men were angry, the dog was in their way. “She is hungry,” I said. She had begun to gnaw the glove I had dropped in the bottom of the boat. Then it suddenly flashed over me! If there was nothing in the hut to feed a hungry dog, neither was there any food for a man.”