The White Guard had come back. Jaspar Hume as simply acknowledged his strident welcome as he had done the God-speed two months and more ago. With the factor he bore the sick man in, and laid him on his own bed. Then he came outside again, and when they cheered him once more, he said: “We have come safe through, and I’m thankful. But remember that my comrades in this march deserve your cheers more than I. Without them I couldn’t have done anything.”
“In our infirmities and in all our dangers and necessities,” added Jeff Hyde. “The luck of the world was in that book!”
In another half-hour the White Guard was at ease, and four of them were gathered about the great stove in the store, Cloud-in-the-Sky smoking placidly, and full of guttural emphasis; Late Carscallen moving his animal-like jaws with a sense of satisfaction; Gaspe Toujours talking in Chinook to the Indians, in patois to the French clerk, and in broken English to them all; and Jeff Hyde exclaiming on the wonders of the march, the finding of Lepage at Manitou Mountain, and of himself and Gaspe Toujours buried in the snow.
VII
In Hume’s house at midnight Lepage lay asleep with his wife’s letters—received through the factor—in his hand. The firelight played upon a dark, disappointed face—a doomed, prematurely old face, as it seemed to the factor.
“You knew him, then,” the factor said, after a long silence, with a gesture towards the bed.
“Yes, well, years ago,” replied Hume.
Just then the sick man stirred in his sleep, and he said disjointedly: “I’ll make it all right to you, Hume.” Then came a pause, and a quicker utterance: “Forgive—forgive me, Rose.” The factor got up, and turned to go, and Hume, with a sorrowful gesture, went over to the bed.
Again the voice said: “Ten years—I have repented ten years—I dare not speak—”