Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/209

Rh the ugly rock on which a good man was splitting his life.

"Tempest," he said in his throat. "Good God! Tempest!"

He told himself that he had known it before. But he knew with an artist's instinct that he had not known until he saw Andree's face. There was no heart behind that face; no understanding. Tempest meant no more to her than Robison or O'Hara had done. Perhaps not so much. And she meant to Tempest—Dick thrust himself through a gap in the rail-fence, and felt the dried grass of the churchyard beneath his feet. The door was open, and the light went in, glorious and golden, to dazzle on the small brass cross above the altar. Dick remembered a tall black cross standing bare on a hill on the trail to Lower Landing. Russian emigrants had worshipped there before they built a church to house their prayers in, but to Dick the man whom these two crosses represented meant nothing, although the man who was likely soon to be broken on the cross of his own passion meant very much indeed.

The day was nearly done. The wind was full of rich scents from the yellow-daisy blooms and clover and silver reeds in the river; from grass on the low warm hills and damp moss in the muskeg, and from thick, loamy earth in the forest. Clear notes of birds fluted across the river, and the sunset lights were flushing in warm opal on the sky. As Dick reached the barrack-gate, slowly, and with his head low, he was stopped by Parrett, the Dissenting minister.

Parrett had been in Grey Wolf nearly a year, and he had learnt much, though not so much as he would have done if Grey Wolf had had more time to give to his education.

"I hear that Robison doesn't go down to Fort Saskatchewan till to-morrow," he said. "S'pose I can come right in and see him, Corporal?"

Dick never considered his title an insult on any lips but Parrett's.

"Don't you think you are a trifle premature?" he suggested. "The man is not condemned yet."

"Why—why—it's not necessary to wait for that."

"But I think I would, really. Robison might feel it rather a personal matter. And, in any case, is it worth