half-derision at himself. Tempest could only do it by blinding his conscience. Part of him guessed that he was doing this. Part of him clung to that early image of Andree; of the ideal woman and the ideal life; clung fiercely, with all the steel-spring tenacity of his nature. He could not let her go, and he would not, until she was taken irrevocably from him.
But when the moment which he had feared came, four days later, and he saw Andree walk into the witness-box and take the oath, all his strength went out of him, and he hid his eyes under his hand. Dick, sitting in the front seat among the witnesses, watched with that silent intensity which had gained him his Indian name of Carcajou. He saw Robison in the dock raise his head and look once at Andree with that expression which Dick had seen in the cell at Chipewyan. There was renunciation in it; there was adoration; self-abnegation. There was something which lifted him for the instant to a plane where Dick had never trodden yet. Then it was gone, and the thick, heavy face and brutal eyes and forehead showed reddened and swarthy in the airless heat of the filled court-room. Dick's suspicions strengthened. Could it possibly be Andree who was playing Robison into the hands of death? Was there any means by which Robison could save himself if he chose? Was Andree herself the sinner, and did Robison know it?
Dick would have been glad to believe this or anything else which could part her from Tempest. But he could not believe it. He could not have done such a thing himself. Had Jennifer stood there, lying away his liberty with the half-coquettish innocence Andree used he would have had her life for it though he took his own directly after. And that breed, coarse and dark and soulless as a lump of moosemeat, could assuredly never be so far swayed by the epic passion of love, no matter how far the passions of hate might move him.
One by one the questions went on, almost as a matter of form.
"You say that you ran away while the murder was taking place. Were you running into Grey Wolf for help?"
