"Sounds queer—that word 'conscienceless' coming from me," he mocked bitterly. "I've never had a conscience or a heart in obeying the word of the law—but I've never thought bad of a woman in the way Aleck Curry thinks of Mona Guyon. He would sell his soul, if he had one, to possess her—even if she came to him for only an hour as the price of your safety and freedom. And you're going home—an outlaw!"
"By that you mean Curry will hold me in his power when I reach Five Fingers?"
"Yes."
"And will attempt to force from me a price——"
Peter stood looking straight into Carter's eyes.
"Yes, partly from you, but mostly from Mona. That is why I've been holding you back, a drag from the beginning. Curry's uncle has become a power politically, and Aleck was given a corporalship a year ago. I would stake my life that he is keeping his secret about you and the part you played in your father's escape two years ago. The knowledge is too precious for him to divulge. You assaulted him, almost killed him, and freed your father; you kept him—an officer of the law—a prisoner on an island; later you fired upon Curry and me with the rifle which Simon McQuarrie gave you—and all this means from five to fifteen years in prison for you, and Curry knows it. The fact that your father was almost blind, and that his mind had broken down, won't help you. Law is law, especially in Canada. Our judges and juries go by the code and not by emotions. And this law, its inviolability, is why Aleck Curry is a greater menace to you now than all the dangers you have encountered since you led your father into the north.
"He is moved entirely by two passions, one his desire for Mona Guyon and the other his hatred for you. On the night when we almost caught you both in your escape from Five Fingers he offered me a thousand dollars and his uncle's influence in getting me a sergeancy if I would keep the secret of your capture, and turn our prisoners over to him. It was my humor to let him think he had bought me. And then, in the dawn of that morning, you filled our boat full of bullets—and got way. That's the story, Peter. There is no escaping the trap if you return to Five Fingers. Curry will descend upon you, demand marriage of Mona, or probably worse—and if she refuses——"
"She can visit me occasionally in prison," said Peter.
His face reflected no trace of the white heat that had mounted into Carter's; he spoke quietly and his hands had lost their clenched tenseness. For a moment Carter gazed at him in silence.
"You mean that?"