CHAPTER XXXVII
A MAN'S DEATH
"Give up the trail of Pierre."
And there, brought face to face with the mortal question, even her fear burned low in her, and once more she remembered the youth who would not leave her in the snow, but held her in his arms with the strange cross above them.
She said simply: "I still love him."
A faint glimmer came to her through the dark and she could see deeper into the shrubbery, for now the moon stood up on the top of the great peak above them and flung a faint radiance into the hollow. That glimmer she saw, but no face of a man.
And then the silence held; every second of it was more than a hundred spoken words.
Then the calm voice said: "I cannot give him up."
"For the sake of God!"
"God and I have been strangers for a good many years."
"For my sake."
"But you see, I have been lying to myself. I told myself that I was coming merely to see you once—for the last time. But after I saw you I had to speak, and now that I have spoken it is hard to leave you, and now that I am with you I cannot give you up to Pierre le Rouge."
She cried: "What will you have of me?"
He answered with a ring of melancholy: "Friendship? No, I can't take those white hands—mine are so red. All I can do is to lurk about you like a shadow—a shadow with a sting that strikes down all other men who come near you."
She said: "For all men have told me about you, I know you could not do that."
"Mary, I tell you there are things about me, and possibilities, about which I don't dare to question myself."
"You have guarded me like a brother. Be one to me still; I have never needed one so deeply!"
"A brother? Mary, if your eyes were less blue or your hair less golden I might be; but you are too beautiful to be only that to me."
"Listen to me—"
But she stopped in the midst of her speech, because a white head loomed beside the dim form. It was the head of a horse, with pricking ears, which now nosed the shoulder of its master, and she saw the firelight glimmering in the great eyes.
"Your horse," she said in a trembling voice, "loves you and trusts you."
"It is the only thing which has not feared me. When it was a colt it came out of the herd and nosed my hand. It is the only thing which has not fought me, as all men have done as you are doing now, Mary."
The wind that blew up the gorge came in gusts, not any steady current, but fitful rushes of air, and on one of these brief blasts it seemed to Mary that she caught the sound of a voice blown to whistling murmur. It was a vague thing of which she could not be sure, as faint as a thought. Yet the head of the white horse disappeared, and the glimmer of the man's face went out.
She called: "Whatever you are, wait! Let me speak!"
But no answer came, and she knew that the form was gone forever.
She cried again: "Who's there?"
"It is I," said a voice at her elbow, and she turned to look into the dark eyes of Jacqueline.
"So he's gone?" asked Jack bitterly.
She fingered the butt of her gun.
"I thought—well, my chance at him is gone."
"But what—"
"Bah, if you knew you'd die of fear. Listen to what I have to say. All the things I told you in the cabin were lies."
"Lies?" said Mary evenly. "No, they proved themselves."
"Be still till I've finished, because if you talk you may make me forget—"
The gesture which finished the sentence was so eloquent of hate that Mary shrank away and put the embers of the fire between them.
"I tell you, it was all a lie, and Pierre le Rouge has never loved anything but you, you milk-faced, yellow-livered—"
She stopped again, fighting against her passion. The pride of Mary held her stiff and straight, though her voice shook.
"Has he sent you after me with mockery?"
"No, he's given up the hope of you."
"The hope?"
"Don't you see? Are you going to make me crawl to explain? It always seemed to me that God meant Pierre for me. It always seemed to me that a girl like me was what he needed. But Pierre had never seen it. Maybe, if my hair was yellow an' my eyes blue, he might have felt different; but the way it is, he's always treated me like a kid brother—"
"And lived with you?" said the other sternly.
"Like two men! D'you understand how a woman could be the bunky of a man an' yet be no more to him than—than a man would be. You don't? Neither do I, but that's what I've been to Pierre le Rouge. What's that?"
She lifted her head and stood poised as if for flight. Once more the vague sound blew up to them upon the wind. Mary ran to her and grasped both of her hands in her own.
"If it's true—"
But Jack snatched her hands away and looked on the other with a mighty hatred and a mightier contempt.
"True? Why, it damn near finishes Pierre with me to think he'd take up with—a thing like you. But it's true. If somebody else had told me I'd of laughed at 'em. But it's true. Tell me: what'll you do with him?"
"Take him back—if I can reach him—take him back to the East and to God's country."
"Yes—maybe he'd be happy there. But when the spring comes to the city, Mary, wait till the wind blows in the night and the rain comes tappin' on the roof. Then hold him if you can. D'ye hear? Hold him if you can!"
"If he cares it will not be hard. Tell me again, if—"
"Shut up. What's that again?"
The sound was closer now and unmistakably something other than the moan of the wind.
Jacqueline turned in great excitement to Mary:
"Did McGurk hear that sound down the gorge?"
"Yes. I think so. And then he—"
"My God!"
"What is it?"
"Pierre, and he's calling for—d'you hear?"
Clear and loud, though from a great distance, the wind carried up the sound and the echo preserved it: "McGurk!"
"McGurk!" repeated Mary.
"Yes! And you brought him up here with you, and brought his death to Pierre. What'll you do to save him now? Pierre!"
She turned and fled out among the trees, and after her ran Mary, calling, like the other: "Pierre!"