It was more than a
spirit of unrest in Jan to-day, more than suspicion, more than his old
dread of that final moment of the tragedy he was playing, which would
condemn him to everlasting perdition in the woman's eyes. It was pain,
poignant, terrible--something which he could not name, something upon
which he could place his hand, and yet which filled him with a desire to
throw himself upon his face in the snow and sob out his grief as he had
seen the little children do. It was not dread, but the torment of
reality, that gripped him now, and when he faced the woman he knew why.
There had come a terrible change, but a quiet change, in Cummins' wife.
The luster had gone from her eyes. There was a dead whiteness in her face
that went to the roots of her shimmering hair, and as she spoke to Jan
she clutched one hand upon her bosom, which rose and fell as Jan had seen
the breast of a mother lynx rise and fall in the last torture of its
death.
"Jan," she panted, "Jan--you have lied to me!"
Jan's head dropped. The worn caribou skin of his coat crumpled upon his
breast. His heart died. And yet he found voice, soft, low, simple.
"Yes, me lie!"
"You--you lied to me!"
"Yes--me--lie--"
His head dropped lower. He heard the sobbing breath of the woman, and
gently his arm crooked itself, and his fingers rose slowly, very slowly,
toward the hilt of his hunting knife.
"Yes--Mees Cummins--me lie--"
There came a sudden swift, sobbing movement, and the woman was at Jan's
feet, clasping his hand to her bosom as she had clasped it once before
when he had gone out to face death for her.
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