Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/396

394 looked at her a moment. Then he stood up, drawing his breath in between his teeth.

"That ends it, I fancy," he said. "I suppose you hope that some day I'll come to love that Power which you have set up between us. I am not quite such a fool, Jennifer. I shall never do anything but hate it."

He turned down the room as though to leave her without another word. But at the door he wheeled swiftly and came back; caught her close in his arms; kissed her once on the lips, and let her go. She heard his quick, firm tread across the floor and the decisive shutting of the door. And then she dropped down on the couch in a little heap with her face covered.

Jennifer's mother also heard the shutting of the door. She had been listening for it ever since she came down the passageway more than half an hour ago, and found Dick's coat and cap outside the door. She had seen the shining buttons of the Mounted Police among the fur, and with a sudden chill at her heart she had stooped and felt the lining of the thick coat and the cap. They were quite cold, and then she knew to whom they must belong. If it were any other man Jennifer would have come to call her long since.

She went back to her room, sitting with the door half-open, and listening for that step. She had never seen Dick. She had not known his name until she came to Grey Wolf. Jennifer never spoke of him. But she knew the hold that he had on her daughter's heart, and she knew that she was helpless here. She, with all her love and her long years of cherishing was helpless against this unknown man who had trodden farther into Jennifer's heart than she could ever tread. She sat still in her chair, with her delicate wrinkled hands pressed together, and waited for him to come by. And when she heard the door shut she went out into the passage swiftly, so that he must pass her as he came.

She watched him as he come, walking straightly. He held his cap in his hand, and his big coat fell open, showing the dull blurr of khaki. He came as a man who knew his Way; glancing at her carelessly with bold, imperious eyes that seemed to look through her and pass on. To his