“Is that final?” asked Seguis.
“Absolutely!”
“Well, then, to-morrow, you start up the lake to the other camp.” Seguis rose from his seat, indifferently. “I guess we've nothing left to discuss,” he added, and began to walk back toward the camp.
“Seguis, wait!” Donald's face was ghastly with the resolve that had come to him, but he spoke with an even, commanding voice, which arrested the other. “You must not do that. It would be murder.”
“How so? You have your opportunity to avoid it.”
“Would you murder your own flesh and blood? Tell me, Seguis, would you do that?” The voice was still even, but the eyes that searched those of the half-breed were bright with an intense fire.
“What do you mean by 'my own flesh and blood?' Are you going crazy, McTavish?” demanded the half-breed, feeling, he knew not why, a mysterious fear move within him.
“Crazy! No, indeed, my good Seguis—only too far from it, I sometimes think!” was the spoken reply. But over and over to himself, McTavish was saying: “He doesn't know it! He doesn't know it!”
“Well, what do you mean then?”
“Just what I say; that, if you send me back to the other camp, you'll be murdering your own flesh and blood. Good God! man, don't you know who your father was?