Jan's fingers trembled as they sought Thornton's hand.
"And everything is—is—nothing when you give it for love and happiness," he urged. "The great God, I know—"
"Everything," cried Thornton. "Don't you understand? I said EVERYTHING!" He turned almost fiercely upon his companion. "I'd give up my name—for HER. I'd bury myself back there in the forests and never go out of them—for HER. I'd give up fortune, friends, lose myself for ever—for HER. But I can't. Good God, don't you understand?"
Jan stared. His eyes grew large and dark.
"I've spent ten years of WORSE than hell down there—with a woman," went on Thornton. "It happens among us—frequently, this sort of hell. I came up here to get out of it for a time. You know—now. There is a woman down there who—who is my wife. She would be glad if I never returned. She is happy now, when I am away, and I have been happy—for a time. I know what love is. I have felt it. I have lived it. God forgive me, but I am almost tempted to go back—to HER!"
He stopped at the change which had come in Jan, who stood as straight and as still as the blank spruce behind them, with only his eyes showing that there was life in him. Those eyes held Thornton's. They burned upon him through the gray gloom as he had never seen human eyes burn before. He waited, half startled, and Jan spoke. In his voice there was nothing of that which Thornton saw in his eyes. It was low, and soft, and though it had that which rung like steel, Thornton could not have understood or feared it more.
"M'sieur, how far have you gone—WITH HER?" Thornton understood and advanced with his hands reaching out to Jan.
"Only as far as one might go with the purest thing on earth," he said. "I have sinned—in loving her, and in letting her love me, but that is all, Jan Thoreau. I swear that is all!"
"And you are going back into the south?"
"Yes, I am going back into the south."