THE GREAT LIE
D’Arcy regarded him fixedly. It astonished him that a man should travel hundreds of miles in the Arctic winter to vent his wrath on another.
“Why should you come?” he murmured.
“You—you ask me that! You——”
He stopped as a spasm of pain crossed D’Arcy’s face. In the presence of impending Death he found a strange difficulty in giving full vent to his hate.
“I see,” gasped D’Arcy. “It’s because I helped her to escape. Perhaps I was wrong, but believe me, it was better that way. I knew her years ago.... It gave you pain, but it may have saved her from hating you—eventually....”
This seeming hypocrisy staggered Jim. That any man facing the shadow of Death could act 225 in such manner was amazing. He quivered with violent repulsion.
“I wasn’t referring to that,” he snapped. “She didn’t escape—I brought her back.”
“You—you brought her back! Then why did you come here?”
“I came to kill you—with my hands. Did you think I would rest until that score was settled?”