Loisette sat beside the fire, but her body was half-turned from it toward the man on the sofa. She was not agitated outwardly, but within there was that fire which burns up life and hope and all the things that come between us and great issues. It had burned up everything in her except one thought, one powerful motive. She had been deeply wronged, and justice had been about to give “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But the man lying there had come to sweep away the scaffolding of justice—he had come for that.
Perhaps he might arrive at Askatoon before the stroke of the hour, but still he would be too late, for in her pocket now was the Governor’s reprieve. The man had slept soundly. His wallet was still in his breast; but the reprieve was with her.
If he left without discovering his loss, and got well on his way, and discovered it then, it would be too late. If he returned—she only saw one step before her, she would wait for that, and deal with it when it came. She was thinking of Lucy, of her own lover ruined and gone. She was calm in her madness.
At the first light of the moon she roused him. She had put food into his fur-coat pocket, and after he had drunk a bowl of hot pea-soup, while she told him his course again, she opened the door, and he passed out into the night. He started forward without a word, but came back again and caught her hand.
“Pardon,” he said; “I go forget everyt’ing except dat. But I t’ink what you do for me, it is better than all my life. Bien sûr, I will come again, when I get my mind to myself. Ah, but you are beautibul,” he said, “an’ you not happy. Well, I come again—yes, à Dieu.”
He was gone into the night, with the moon silvering the sky, and the steely frost eating into the sentient life of this northern world. Inside the house, with the bearskin blind dropped at the window again, and the fire blazing high, Loisette sat with the Governor’s reprieve in her hand. Looking at it, she wondered why it had been given to Ba’tiste Caron and not to a police-officer. Ah yes, it was plain—Ba’tiste was a woodsman and plainsman, and could go far more safely than a constable, and faster. Ba’tiste had reason for going fast, and he would travel night and day—he was travelling night and day indeed. And now Ba’tiste might get there, but the reprieve would not. He would not be able to stop the hanging of Haman—the hanging of Rube Haman.
A change came over her. Her eyes blazed, her breast heaved now. She had been so quiet, so cold and still. But life seemed moving in her once again. The woman, Kate Wimper, who had helped to send two people to their graves, would now drink the dregs of shame, if she was capable of shame—would be robbed of her happiness, if so be she loved Rube Haman.
She stood up, as though to put the paper in the fire, but paused suddenly at one thought—Rube Haman was innocent of murder.
Even so, he was not innocent of Lucy’s misery and death, or the death of the little one who only opened its eyes to the light for an instant, and then went into the dark again. But truly she was justified! When Haman was gone things would go on just the same—and she had been so bitter, her heart had been pierced as with a knife these past three years. Again she held out her hand to the fire, but suddenly she gave a little cry and put her hand to her head. There was Ba’tiste!