"He is gone, too."
She got a bundle she had prepared and said good-by to Peter but not until he had promised to return directly from the island by way of the inlet. She watched him until he disappeared in the gray haze that hung over the water, and then looked at the clock to mark the time he would be returning. Scarcely had she done this when a figure stalked past one of the windows. Instantly she recognized it as Simon McQuarrie. He went straight to his cabin, entered it and closed the door. And Carter was not with him!
Her heart throbbed as she went outside, determined to follow him. But something held her back. Then she forced herself to follow her first impulse, and a moment later was knocking at Simon's door. There was no answer. She persisted, knocking loudly and calling his name, and still there was no response. Then she tried the door and found it locked. Where there had been fear in her breast there was now conviction. The tiger in the old Scotchman had been at work, and in his own way—and the only way—he had solved the great problem of her life and Peter's, and had made the world free again for his old friend Donald McRae. He had rid the island of Aleck Curry, and had done away with Carter. And now he wanted to be alone—alone in his cabin!
Not for a moment did she question the reasonableness of her conviction. It seized upon her like a many-tentacled thing, choking back her doubt and overwhelming her with its certainty. It made her steal pantingly to the edge of the forest, and then to the beginning of the long finger of spruce and cedar that reached away out to the entrance of Middle Finger Inlet. Half an hour later she was on the sand and gravel beach under the big cliff, waiting for Peter's return. And now she noticed a change in the wind. Loose tresses of her hair blew seaward. That meant the fire would come over the ridges!
In another quarter of an hour she could scarcely see the farther side of Middle Finger Inlet. A black pall of smoke was creeping closer in the north and west. Then, very faintly, she saw something creeping up like a ghost out of the smoke gloom of the sea. She knew it was Peter. He was coming with nerve-racking slowness, it seemed to her. Yet she did not want to cry out to him until he was nearer. He was using his oars, and at times there was a half-minute interval between his strokes. Why was he so slow? Was it because of what he had found on the island? Surely Simon would have left no telltale signs. So far as Peter was concerned Aleck Curry could only be missing—nothing more!
A shudder ran through her. Then she cried Peter's name. Her voice carried strangely clear. There was silence in the boat. The oars were resting without a sound.
"Peter," she cried again. "Peter! I am here—on the point!"
He must have heard her, and it was unusual that he did not answer. But the oars rattled again, and she could see the shape of the boat turning slowly, and then growing larger as it came toward her. It was odd, too, that Peter did not come directly to the point, but grounded his boat among the big rocks fifty yards below her—a place where he knew it was difficult for her to go. So she stood on the white sand, waiting for him. She could hear his boots on the rocks; then she saw him approaching through a dusk of early twilight thickened by the smoke of the fire.
"Here I am, Peter," she called softly.