Shame?
Yes. From that night he was ashamed to show his face ever again at Lac
Bain. And no one knows where he went. No one--except Elise. And her
secret is in her own breast."
"And after that?" questioned Reese Beaudin, in a voice that was scarcely
above a whisper.
"I cannot understand," said Joe Delesse. "It was strange, m'sieu, very
strange. I know that Elise, even after that coward ran away, still loved
him. And yet--well, something happened. I overheard a terrible quarrel
one day between Jan Thiebout, father of Elise, and Jacques Dupont. After
that Thiebout was very much afraid of Dupont. I have my own suspicion.
Now that Thiebout is dead it is not wrong for me to say what it is. I
think Thiebout killed the halfbreed Bedore who was found dead on his
trap-line five years ago. There was a feud between them. And Dupont,
discovering Thiebout's secret--well, you can understand how easy it would
be after that, m'sieu. Thiebout's winter trapping was in that Burntwood
country, fifty miles from neighbor to neighbor, and very soon after
Bedore's death Jacques Dupont became Thiebout's partner. I know that
Elise was forced to marry him. That was four years ago. The next year old
Thiebout died, and in all that time not once has Elise been to Post Lac
Bain!"
"Like the Yellow-back--she never returned," breathed Reese Beaudin.
"Never. And now--it is strange--"
"What is strange, Joe Delesse?"
"That for the first time in all these years she is going to Lac Bain--to
the dog sale.
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