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390 mantel-shelf as she walked through the room with her hands shut up, fighting for her self-control. He did not attempt to speak, knowing that she would scatter his words out like chaff. He stood still, looking at the black kitten where it wound itself in a spool of Jennifer's thread, and presently she burst out:

"You should have helped me to do what was right. You are the strongest; you should have helped me."

"I did," he said, not looking at her. "It was right for you to come to me. We love each other."

"It is not right while Harry is alive. And I feel that he is. I"

"He is alive," said Dick coldly. "I have left him in prison at Regina Barracks. I found him living among the Esquimaux with a native wife."

He raised his eyes and looked at her as he spoke. But she swung round and walked the room again, and be could not tell how much she was stirred by his news. She walked in silence, and presently he was ashamed of his brutality.

"For God's sake have some pity on me, Jennifer," he said. "Don't treat me as if I'd been a scoundrel."

"Then you must help me do what is right," she said.

"What do you choose to call right?"

"Sending you—away."

The voice very nearly broke. Dick laughed, half-impatient, half-desperate.

"Merci much, as the breeds say. No, I'm not going to help you do that. You hardly expect it, do you?"

"If you love me, I do."

"But this is madness," he said in exasperation. "There's no use going over all this ground again, Jennifer. You know what I thought before. Now, after what you have allowed me to do, I consider that I have some say in the matter. I am not going to be sent away."

She stopped and looked at him with her eyes wide in her white face.

"You are making my punishment a very certain and bitter thing," she said.

"My darling—oh, good Heavens, what am I to do with you? Sweetheart, when a thing is done, it's done. You showed me just now that I meant more to you than anyone