“Mr. Gault instructs me to say that you and your girl must prepare to go out to Fort Good Hope when the fur goes in four or five days’ time. He can no longer take the responsibility of keeping you here while the Slavis are in open rebellion.”
Loseis laughed scornfully. “He can always find respectable-sounding words, can’t he?” she said. “You’re a white man, aren’t you? I should think you would feel ashamed to be the carrier of such lying words.”
Moale’s face changed not a muscle. Some secret feeling made him proof against her scorn. He was not altogether white. He had not looked directly in her face.
Loseis’ temper got the better of her. “You tell Gault, I shan’t go!” she cried.
In his even voice Moale said: “I am instructed to say that Mr. Gault is prepared for that.”
Loseis shut the door.
During the hours that followed she walked up and down her room, half beside herself with balked rage. What possible answer was there to this latest threat of Gault’s. He had hinted at using force. He intended to lay hands on her. To Loseis’ flaming blood there were only two possible answers: to kill herself or to kill Gault. The first alternative she immediately rejected; that was the counsel of weakness. Nothing would please Gault better than for her to kill herself. She would kill Gault then, before he should lay hands on her. But ah! dared she take the life of a white man? She had had so vivid an experience of death taking a man in his strength.
Besides there were three other men. She could not hope to shoot them all before she was seized. She would be carried out anyhow. She visualized the horrors of a trial of which she knew so little; she imagined the cloud of lies that would beat her down. She had no one to speak for her but Mary-Lou; and Mary-Lou would never be allowed to speak. And if she were, the simple red girl would be struck dumb with terror. Disgraced! Disgraced! thought Loseis. Parted from Conacher without hope in this life. She buried her face in her hands. I must not kill him! she thought in terror. I must not let myself kill him. . . . But how can I help it if he lays hands on me!
If Gault had come over without warning to seize her, Loseis would have snatched up a gun, and shot him without thinking about it. But with devilish cunning he had sent to tell her of his intention. He was giving her four days in which to go mad with trying to find a way out when there was none.
Mary-Lou was terrified by the expression on her mistress’ face. She held out her arms imploringly. “Please . . . please to go to bed,” she whispered. “You will sleep. To-morrow you feel better.”