"The curse worked swiftly, m'sieur. It came first—in remorse—to the man. It gnawed at his soul, ate him alive, and drove him from place to place with the woman and the child. The purity and love of the woman added to his suffering, and at last he came to know that the hand of God had fallen upon his head. The woman saw his grief but did not know the reason for it. And so the curse first came to her. They went north—far north, above the Barren Lands, and the curse followed there. It gnawed at his life until—he died. That was seven years after the child was born."
The oil lamp sputtered and began to smoke, and with a quick movement
Jan turned the wick down until they were left in darkness.
"M'sieur, it was then that the curse began to fall upon the woman and the child. Do you not believe that about the sins of the fathers falling upon others? Mon Dieu, it is so—it is so. It came in many small ways—and then—the curse—it came suddenly—LIKE THIS." Jan's voice came in a hissing whisper now. Thornton could feel his hot breath as he leaned over the table, and in the darkness Jan's eyes shone like two coals of fire. "It came like THIS!" panted Jan. "There was a new missioner at the post—a—a Christian from the South, and he was a great friend to the woman, and preached God, and she BELIEVED him. The boy was very young, and saw things, but did not understand at first. He knew, afterward, that the missioner loved his mother's beauty, and that he tried hard to win it—and failed, for the woman, until death, would love only the one to whom she had given herself first. Great God, it happened THEN—one night when every soul was about the big fires at the caribou roast, and there was no one near the lonely little cabin where the boy and his mother lived. The boy was at the feast, but he ran home—with a bit of dripping meat as a gift for his mother—and he heard her cries, and ran in to be struck down by the missioner. It happened THEN, and even the boy knew, and followed the man, shrieking that he had killed his mother." There was a terrible calmness now in Jan's voice. "M'sieur, it was true. She wasted away like a flower after that night. She died, and left the boy alone with the curse. And that boy, m'sieur, was Jan Thoreau. The woman was his mother."
There was silence now, a dead, pulseless quiet, broken after a moment by a movement. It was Thornton, groping across the table. Jan felt his hands touch his arm. They groped farther in the darkness, until Jan Thoreau's hands were clasped tightly in Thornton's.
"And that—is all?" he questioned hoarsely.
"No, it is but the beginning," said Jan softly. "The curse has followed me, m'sieur, until I am the unhappiest man in the world. To-day I have done all that is to be done. When my father died he left papers which my mother was to give to me when I had attained manhood. When she died they came to me. She knew nothing of that which was in them, and I am glad. For they told the story that I have told to you, m'sieur, and from his grave my father prayed to me to make what restitution I could. When he came into the North for good he brought with him most of his fortune—which was large, m'sieur—and placed it where no one would ever find it—in the stock of the Great Company. A half of it, he said, should be mine. The other half he asked me to return to his children, and to his real wife, if she were living. I have done more than that, m'sieur. I have given up all—for none of it is mine. A half will go to the two children whom he deserted. The other half will go to the child that was unborn. The mother—is—dead."
After a time Thornton said,
"There is more, Jan."
"Yes, there is more, m'sieur," said Jan. "So much more that if I were to tell it to you it would not be hard for you to understand why Jan Thoreau is the unhappiest man in the world. I have told you that this is but the beginning. I have not told you of how the curse has followed me and robbed me of all that is greatest in life—how it has haunted me day and night, m'sieur, like a black spirit, destroying my hopes, turning me at last into an outcast, without people, without friends, without—that—which you, too, will give up in this girl at Oxford House. M'sieur, am I right? You will not go back to her. You will go south, and some day the Great God will reward you."
He heard Thornton rising in the dark.