In the morning when Adrian Rayner took the trail, he looked back at the haggard man standing by the cabin door. Bracknell had been delirious in the night, and now as he stood there swaying, the other looked at him without pity.
“Booked!” he muttered to himself, “and knows it. If Roger Bracknell should happen to return here, Harrow Fell will require a new heir, and I shall be saved from a disagreeable necessity. But that chance is not to be depended on. I must find him if I can.”
And as he followed the Northward trail there was the index of grim purpose in his face.
CHAPTER XIX
HUSBAND AND WIFE
IT WAS THE end of the day, and Joy Gargrave, kneeling down on a litter of young spruce boughs, in the shadow of a wind screen, stretched her mittened hands towards the fire. Then she removed her face mask and looked at her foster-sister, who having changed her moccasins was placing the pair she had worn through the day near the fire where they would dry slowly.
“Tired, Babette?”
“Not more than ordinary,” was the reply, “though I will own to having found those last two miles against the wind a little trying.”