"Pig Pete," said Annie.
Quin came to his empty house and called to tenas Jenny. And then to Sam. When no answer came he ran through the hall into the empty room where the lamp was. On the floor he saw the Bible. He understood. He quite understood.
X
There was no doubt at all in George Quin's mind as to what had happened, and perhaps he was not wholly surprised. What did surprise him was his own ferocious anger, and the wave of pity that even swallowed up his wrath.
"My God!" said Quin.
There wasn't a man in the City who knew him a little but was prepared to swear that Quin was a brute, and a devil without any feeling to speak of. It was said that he had killed Lily, the Haida girl, when, as a matter of fact, it was his brother, Cultus Muckamuck as the Siwashes called him, who had done a deed like that. He had treated Lily well. Her people said so. He had treated them well, the greedy brutes!
Now Quin was full of pity, and of jealousy. This Bible had hurt her poor weak mind, no doubt of that: and it had driven her back to Pete, perhaps.
"My God," said Quin again, "where else?"
He remembered the screams he had heard coming from Shack-Town as he landed. And as he remembered he found himself running down the hill in the starlit gloom. He wasn't a very young man either. Quin was nearly forty: hard and set: at times a little stiff. Now he went recklessly.