She had been glad when Haman was condemned for murder, for she believed he had committed it, and ten times hanging could not compensate for that dear life gone from their sight—Lucy, the pride of her father’s heart. She was glad when Haman was condemned, because of the woman who had stolen him from Lucy, because of that other man, her lover, gone out of her own life. The new hardness in her rejoiced that now the woman, if she had any heart at all, must have it bowed down by this supreme humiliation and wrung by the ugly tragedy of the hempen rope.
And now this man before her, this man with a boy’s face, with the dark luminous eyes, whom she had saved from the frozen plains, he had that in his breast which would free Haman, so he had said. A fury had its birth in her at that moment. Something seemed to seize her brain and master it, something so big that it held all her faculties in perfect control, and she felt herself in an atmosphere where all life moved round her mechanically, she herself the only sentient thing, so much greater than all she saw, or all that she realised by her subconscious self. Everything in the world seemed small. How calm it was even with the fury within!
“Tell me,” she said quietly—“tell me how you are able to save Haman?”
“He not kill Wakely. It is my brudder Fadette dat kill and get away. Haman he is drunk, and everyt’ing seem to say Haman he did it, an’ everyone know Haman is not friend to Wakely. So the juree say he must be hanging. But my brudder he go to die with hawful bad cold queeck, an’ he send for the priest an’ for me, an’ tell all. I go to Governor with the priest, an’ Governor gif me dat writing here.” He tapped his breast, then took out a wallet and showed the paper to her. “It is life of dat Haman, voici! And so I safe him for my brudder. Dat was a bad boy, Fadette. He was bad all time since he was a baby, an’ I t’ink him pretty lucky to die on his bed, an’ get absolve, and go to purgatore. If he not have luck like dat he go to hell, an’ stay there.”
He sighed, and put the wallet back in his breast carefully, his eyes half-shut with weariness, his handsome face drawn and thin, his limbs lax with fatigue.
“If I get Askatoon before de time for dat, I be happy in my heart, for dat brudder off mine he get out of purgatore bime-bye, I t’ink.”
His eyes were almost shut, but he drew himself together with a great effort, and added desperately, “No sleep. If I sleep it is all smash. Man say me I can get Askatoon by dat time from here, if I go queeck way across lak’—it is all froze now, dat lak’—an’ down dat Foxtail Hills. Is it so, ma’m’selle?”
“By the ‘quick’ way if you can make it in time,” she said; “but it is no way for the stranger to go. There are always bad spots on the ice—it is not safe. You could not find your way.”
“I mus’ get dere in time,” he said desperately. “You can’t do it—alone,” she said. “Do you want to risk all and lose?”
He frowned in self-suppression. “Long way, I no can get dere in time?” he asked.