"Your mother was an angel," he said, so quietly and unexpectedly that his words fell upon Peter almost with the effect of a shock. "In the last of those days when your father and I were shut up together by storm and cold in the cabin, and he was accepting me as his son in his madness, he talked of her almost as if she were alive and we were going home to her."
"She has been dead twenty years," said Peter.
"I know. Dead, and yet living. I can scarcely believe that I hunted Donald McRae until I drove him mad—for doing a thing which I would have done had I stood in his shoes that day when he killed a man! It was justice, Peter. My mother I cannot remember. But your mother he made very near and real for me in those last days of—I can't call it his madness!—it was——"
"Forgetfulness," said Peter.
Carter bowed his head. "Yes, forgetfulness. Yet some things lived so vividly—things of the past. He made them live and breathe for me—and one picture makes me want to kill!—that picture of the little cabin in the clearing more than twenty years ago—your mother—you in her arms—Donald McRae's homecoming and the vengeance he dealt out to the snake who had come to take advantage of his absence. When I see that vision I want to choke the life out of a human beast I know—Aleck Curry!"
Peter made no answer.
"I can't undo what I've done," Carter went on. "I tracked your father until his mind broke under the strain, but I can't help that now. It is over. All I can do in the way of reparation is to help you—you and Mona Guyon. And between you two—between your happiness and hers—is one man, a slimy, conscienceless serpent, waiting and watching for your return."
"You mean—Aleck Curry?"
"Yes, Aleck Curry."
Carter stood up, his tall, catlike form bathed in the fire glow, and his hard lips were tightly closed as he stared off into the darkness of the forest.