“Not that!—God, you don’t mean that? Tell me you don’t mean that—Angela——”
She sank her head on her bosom and a sob escaped her. The next moment her head was jerked up and she was gazing into his steely fixed eyes.
“Was it—that man—D’Arcy?”
Another sob convinced him. He flung her arm aside and walked to the door. He had encountered 205 hardships, disappointments, physical and mental pain, but nothing like this devastating destroyer that was gripping him. He stumbled out of the shack like a terribly sick man.
“Oh God!” he groaned. “And I loved her!”
She had won—won by means so foul that he would have died rather than that truth should have become known to him. All life was rotten, rotten to the core! Heaven was uprooted and legions of devils usurped the throne of the Almighty. He unlatched the outhouse and feverishly harnessed six of the dogs to the sled.
Trembling and ill, he crept into the shack to find her vanished to the inner room. He divided up the food in two equal portions, placed half his small financial funds inside a flour-sack, where he knew she would find it, and piled the things onto the sled. Then he called her in a low, almost inaudible, voice. She came from the inner room, closely swathed in furs and with her head sunk.
“The sled’s outside.... You can mush the dogs.... They’re the tamest six.... Fort Yukon is down the river, and the weather’s good....” 206
She nodded and walked through the door. The Arctic moon, shedding a queer blue radiance over the snow hung high in the black vault. Directly overhead the Great Bear gleamed like hanging lamps, with magnificent Vega blazing like a rich jewel. She turned to him once.
“Jim!”