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482 a very large acquaintance with men for so many years that he was prepared for everything. Or it may have been that he set undue value on the fact that one of those men had confessed a fault which he so easily might have suppressed. Whatever the reason it seemed more likely that Dick would find a friend at Regina, in place of the judge he expected. A sudden twist of his ever-nimble brain suggested that it might be the same at the end of that longer journey which he was taking. But here he shrugged his shoulders with a laugh of half-contempt. Those kinds of thoughts and his nature were so ridiculously at variance. It must be, of course, because he was thinking more of Jennifer than usual. Behind the blowing smoke-cloud his eyes softened.

"If only I could bring her more," he said, under his breath. "If I could bring her more for all she has to give me. But a man can't waste his years and his heart and his soul for nothing. I haven't got it to give now."

Something of this was touched on a few nights later when Dick and Tempest walked the dreaming beach under the stars. They would part in the morning, and it would quite probably be long before they met again; and this knowledge, and the haunting beauty and loneliness of the wide lake loosened their tongues a little, so that, hesitatingly and with many pauses, they spoke more intimately than they had done since the days of their fiery youth. Even better than Dick, Tempest knew that the human soul is a shy wild thing which often cannot give where it most desires to give. But, by putting something of man's natural reserve aside, his intuitive skill led him to make some confessions in order to gain them. And by slow degrees he did gain them, until Dick was sufficiently softened to speak of his remorse. But here Tempest stopped him.

"We were both to blame," he said. "Which is, I suppose, much the same as saying we are both human. But my sin was worse than yours because I knew that I was wrong. Almost from the beginning I knew it; but I went on 'in spite of Hell.' Well—you gave me Hell, and I've got out of it" He glanced at Dick with a whimsical smile. "Your methods were not gentle. But I want you to believe that I sincerely think I could have forgiven