he believed it. The immortal thing was there. Born but to die in Andree, perhaps. But it was there. He let her go.
"I see you do," he said slowly. "I see you do."
He looked down the white trail whither she had come to him twice.
"Andree," he cried sharply. "Are you sure that he cares for you?"
And then the absurdity of the question struck him. How could Grange's Andree know the heart of a man? How could she know Dick's heart when Tempest, friend of his youth and companion of his manhood, did not know it? But Andree had no doubts.
She looked at him with bright cheeks and sparkling eyes. Her words had seemed to drive home to her a truth which she had not known. She was exulting in the discovey of something new; something which belonged to her to her very self.
"Oui," she said violently. "C'est vrai. Il m'aime, je vous did. Ah—je lui connais."
For a moment more Tempest looked at her in silence. In the dull track she looked bright and vivid almost as a flame. But he could not ask again for that which Nature and not Andree had denied him. He would never ask for it any more. It was not to be for him to shield her from the dangers which crowded round her careless feet. He could do nothing for her. Nothing. And she needed guidance as few creatures of God's earth needed it. And then, for the last time, he took her hand and kissed it. He had never kissed her face.
"God guard you, Andree," he said, and left her. And along the winter trail she ran and ran, intoxicated with her unreasoning joy.
Dick opened the front door of the barracks to Tempest, and his voice was quick and eager.
"Watson is starting to-night instead of to-morrow morning," he said. "Can we get those permit-papers filed to send out with him?"
Through the open kitchen and up the passage the red of the winter sunset flooded up behind him, striking his outline tall and black and strong. His voice was strong,
