JAN'S STORY
Jan had aged five years during those two hours in the office of the sub-commissioner; he aged now as Thornton looked at him. There came the same tired, hopeless glow into his eyes, the same tense lines in his face. And yet, quickly, he changed as he had not changed on that afternoon. Two livid spots began to burn in his cheeks as he sat down opposite Thornton. He turned the light low, and his eyes glowed more darkly and with an animal-like luster in the half gloom. Something in him now, a quivering, struggling passion that lay behind those eyes, held Thornton white and silent.
"M'sieur," he began in the low voice which Thornton was beginning to understand, "I am going to tell you something which I have told to but two other human beings. It is the story of another man—a man from civilization, like you, who came up into this country of ours years and years ago, and who met a woman, as you have met this girl at Oxford House, and who loved her as you love this one, and perhaps more. It is singular that the case should be so similar, m'sieur, and it is because of this that I believe Our Blessed Lady gives me courage to tell it to you. For this man, like you, left a wife—and two children—when he came into the North. M'sieur, I pray the Great God to forgive him, for he left a third child—unborn."
Jan leaned upon his hand so that it shaded his face.
"It is not so much of THAT as of what followed that I am going to tell you, m'sieur," he went on. "It was a beautiful love—on the woman's part, and it would have been a beautiful love on the man's part if it had been pure. For her he gave up everything, even his God—as you would give up everything—and your God—for this girl at Oxford House. M'sieur, I will speak mostly of the woman now. She was beautiful. She was one of the three most beautiful things that God ever placed in our world, and she loved this man. She married him, believed in him, was ready to die for him, to follow him to the ends of the earth, as our women will do for the men they love. God in Heaven, can you not guess what happened, m'sieur? A CHILD WAS BORN!"
So fiercely did Jan cry out the words that Thornton jerked back as though a blow had been struck at him from out of the gloom.
"A child was born!" repeated Jan, and Thornton heard his nails digging in the table. "That was the first curse of God—a child! La Charogne—les bêtes de charogne—that is what we call them—beasts of carrion and carrion eaters, breeders of devils and sin! Mon Dieu, that is what happened! A child was born, with the curse of God upon him!"
Jan stopped, his nails digging deeper, his breath escaping from him as though he had been running.
"Down in YOUR world he would have grown up a MAN," he continued, speaking more calmly. "I have heard that—since. It is common down there to be a two-legged carrion—a man or a woman born out of wedlock. I have been told so, and that it is a curse not without hope. But here it is different. The curse never dies. It follows, day after day, year after year. And this child—more unfortunate than the wild things, was born one of them. Do you understand, m'sieur? If the winds had whispered the secret nothing would have come near him—the Indian women would sooner have touched the plague—he would have been an outcast, despised as he grew older, pointed at and taunted, called names which are worse than those called to the lowest and meanest dogs. THAT is what it means to be born under that curse—up here."
He waited for Thornton to speak, but the other sat silent and moveless across the table.