Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/462

460 shoulders. He did not notice the snow. He was seeing into his heart with that piercing self-knowledge which seldom failed him, although he as seldom walked by its light. He had never had anything but contempt for the man who dared not face the sting in order to snatch the honey of life. He had known keenly what he meant to give up for Jennifer. But the whole of his mind and body was eager and resolved to do it. He was giving these things up now for Grange's Andree. He was wrecking his life for no great all-conquering passion; no sense of justice; no honest unselfishness. He was doing it because he was weak; because there was nothing in the core of him which could stand against idle temptation.

The snow thickened. It hung on his eyelashes, half-blinding him. The trail was growing more hilly and rough, and night was closing in with a bleak wind. But not once in the short halts which he made did he speak to the girl behind him. She did not mind. That kiss had filled up her world for her again, and she would have trod after him beside the dogs until weariness forced her to her knees. She wanted nothing but the sight of those broad, straight-held shoulders and the memory of that kiss on her mouth.

Where a few snow-heavy pines made a thicker blurr close at hand Dick stopped with a jerk, suddenly realising the world around him again.

"We must camp here, Andree," he said shortly, and began to break the branches, knocking the snow out of them, and kicking it aside from the earth. He spoke little that night, and repulsed all Andree's overtures. And long after Andree had curled herself in her deerskin robes at the back of the tent Dick sat with his back against the sled and watched the smoky fire and thought.

His work seemed hateful to him now. The past in which he had loved Jennifer and Tempest seemed hateful. He wanted to cut himself free from it as he had done with other pasts. Against the whirling snow Tempest's face shaped itself, with the square strong forehead and the sword of justice in his eyes. He laughed at it. Through his effort to help Tempest this tangle had come around his feet. Who was Tempest to interfere with him now? And