So his steady eyes were watchful of the woman's attitude, and he looked for the sign of those feelings which he knew his return must have set stirring. He knew that, whatever the big Scotsman felt and thought, the woman was the real factor with which he must reckon.
With this understanding he frankly laid bare much which he otherwise would have kept deep hidden. He told these two, who listened in deep sympathy, the story of his pursuit of the man who had wronged him, from the beginning to the end. And, in the telling, so shorn of all unnecessary colouring, the simple deliberateness of his purpose, contemplated in the coldly passionate desire of an implacable nature, the story gained a tremendous force, the more so that his pursuit had ended in failure.
He told them how for nearly a year, after winding up the affairs of his dead father, which had left him with even a better fortune than he had expected, he had systematically devoted himself to spreading a wide net of enquiries. In this process he had to travel some thousands of miles, and had to write many hundreds of letters, and had spent countless hours in the official bureau of local police.
He told them how finally he had discovered the trail he, sought in a remote haunt in the poorer quarters of Winnipeg. This, after many tortuous wanderings and blind alley searchings, had finally led him to the waterside of Quebec, and the purlieus of Mallard's, where, under the guidance of the celebrated Maurice Saney, he ran up against the blank wall of that redoubtable harbour of crime.
"All this," he said, without emotion, "took me over two years. And I guess it wasn't till I hit up against Mallard's that I sat down and took a big think. You see," he went on simply, "I wanted to kill that feller. I wanted to kill that feller, and take my poor girl back and get back my little, little baby. I had a notion I might have to hang for the job, but, anyway, I'd have saved her from a life—well, I'd have saved them both, and been able to fix them so they didn't need a thing in life. What happened to me didn't seem to worry any. But when I hit up against Mallard's, and I'd listened some to Saney I started in to figure. To get that far had taken me over two years, and big money. There might be still years of it ahead of me. And when I'd done, was I sure I'd get Nita and the kiddie back? And if I did, how would I be able to fix them after all the expense? Then there was Marcel. Maybe it was something else urging me to quit. Something I wasn't just aware of. I don't know. I've heard say that a feller who yearns to kill, either kills quick or goes crazy. There wasn't a thing foolish about me. I hadn't any of the foolishness of a crazy man. Which is a way of saying the yearning to kill hadn't the grip on me it had. It was a big fight, but sense—or something else—won out. I quit for those other things I'd got in my head. Guess I heard that little feller's 'Hullo!' ringing in my ears. Same as I heard it up in Unaga. So I cut out the other, and got busy right away fixing things for the big play I mean to put up for the kiddie that Providence has left to me. There are times when my whole body kicks at the thought of that skunk getting away with his play. But there's others when I'm glad—real glad—I quit. I can't judge the thing right. I'm sort of torn in different directions. Anyway, there it is. Maybe the thing I haven't been allowed to do will be done sometime by the Providence that reckons to straighten out most things as it sees fit. I hope the way it sees is my way. That's all. Now I'm ready for the big play. My outfit has gone up by water on Hudson's Bay, a special charter. It's to be landed and cached on the shores of Chesterfield Inlet. I've sunk every cent of my inheritance in it. It's an outfit that'll give Marcel and me a life stake in the work lying ahead. And all that comes out of it is for him. With all this fixed I got back right away."
"But not—in a 'hurry.'"
There was a half smile in the Scotsman's eyes.
"The only 'hurry' I'm in is to get all the season we need," Steve replied simply.
"That means you want Marcel—right away."
Millie spoke without turning from her contemplation of the view beyond the doorway. And there was that in her voice which told Steve of the inroads Marcel had made upon her mother's heart.