Roger Bracknell hesitated. The conversation was inexpressibly painful to him, and to this question he did not know what answer to make. His cousin did not seem to notice the hesitation, and he did not wait for an answer, but continued in a broken way, “There have been Bracknells at the Fell these five hundred years.... And Geoff’s gone, and I’m going, but you’ll ... keep up the line. When you’ve a boy, Roger, call him ... call him Dick. I’d like to think there’ll be one of my name who’ll be as clean and straight as I’ve been crooked. Lord! What a mess a man can make of life! And what a difference it would have made ... if only I’d gone straight at the fences. But would it?... Joy would never have married me ... she never loved me, but you have her heart! Oh, it is so ... I’m not blind, and, Roger, old man, I’m glad it will be you.”
After that he was silent for a long time, to Roger’s unutterable relief, and he spoke only jestingly on the occasions when Sibou and the corporal took him over from the other, and at last, after a weary march, they reached the point where the stream joined the main river, and as they did so a figure broke from the bank and ran towards them. It was Joy.
“You are all here?” she cried. “Safe?”
“Safe! Yes,” laughed Dick weakly. “But a little damaged.”
“What is it?” she asked, turning towards the corporal.
“Dick is wounded,” he answered gravely. “I am afraid it is serious. And as I think we have little to fear from the Indians now, it will perhaps be best if we cross the main river and camp. We can put him upon one of the sleds——”
“Yes! Yes!” she cried, and a moment later she had turned to the wounded man, and was talking to him in a low voice.
Roger moved away. He did not know what she was saying and he had no wish to know, but half an hour later as his cousin lay by a fire which had been lit, he saw that his eyes were shining with a quiet happiness.
“Better, Dick?” he inquired.