Isobel (17 page)

"It kills— kills— kills— and it never gives back when it makes a
mistake."

His lips were set tensely as he faced the cabin. He remembered now
more than one instance where the Law had killed and had never given
back. That was a part of the game of man-hunting. But he had never
thought of it in Isobel's way until she had painted for him in those
few half-mad, accusing words a picture of himself. The fact that he
had fought for Scottie Deane and had given him his freedom did not
exonerate himself in his own eyes now. It was because of himself and
Pelliter chiefly that Deane and Isobel had been forced to seek refuge
among the Eskimos. From Fullerton they had watched and hunted for him
as they would have hunted for an animal. He saw himself as Isobel must
see him now— the murderer of her husband. He was glad, as he returned
to the cabin, that he had happened to come in the second or third day
of her fever. He dreaded her sanity now more than her delirium,

He lighted a tin lamp in the cabin and listened for a moment at the
inner door. Isobel was quiet. For the first time he made a more
careful note of the cabin. Couchée and his wife had left plenty of
food. He had noticed a frozen haunch of venison hanging outside the
cabin, and he went out and chopped off several pieces of the meat. He
did not feel hungry enough to prepare food for himself, but put the
meat in a pot and placed it on the stove, that he might have broth for
Isobel.

He began to find signs of her presence in the room as he moved about.
Hanging on a wooden peg in the log wall he saw a scarf which he knew
belonged to her. Under the scarf there was a pair of her shoes, and
then he noticed that the crude cabin table was covered with a litter
of stuff which he had not observed before. There were needles and
thread, some cloth, a pair of gloves, and a red bow of ribbon which
Isobel had worn at her throat. What held his eyes were two bundles of
old letters tied with blue ribbon, and a third pile, undone and
scattered. In the light of the lamp he saw that all of the writing on
the envelopes was in the same hand. The top envelope on the first pile
was addressed to "Mrs. Isobel Deane, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan"; the
first envelope of the other bundle to "Miss Isobel Rowland, Montreal,
Canada." Billy's heart choked him as he gathered the loose letters in
his hands and placed them, with the others, on a little shelf above
the table. He knew that they were letters from Deane, and that in her
fever and loneliness Isobel had been reading them when he brought to
her news of her husband's death.

He was about to remove the other articles from the table where a
folded newspaper clipping was uncovered by the removal of the cloth.
It was a half page from a Montreal daily, and out of it there looked
straight up at him the face of Isobel Deane. It was a younger, more
girlish-looking face, but to him it was not half so beautiful as the
face of the Isobel who had come to him from out of the Barren. His
fingers trembled and his breath came more quickly as he held the paper
in the light and read the few lines under the picture:

ISOBEL ROWLAND, ONE OF THE LAST OF MONTREAL'S DAUGHTERS OF THE
NORTH, WHO HAS SACRIFICED A FORTUNE FOR LOVE OF A YOUNG ENGINEER

In spite of the feeling of shame that crept over him at thus allowing
himself to be drawn into a past sacred to Isobel and the man who had
died, Billy's eyes sought the date-line. The paper was eight years
old. And then he read what followed. In those few minutes, as the
cold, black type revealed to him the story of Isobel and Deane, he
forgot that he was in the cabin, and that he could almost hear the
breathing of the woman whose sweet romance had ended now in tragedy.
He was with Deane that day, years ago, when he had first looked into
Isobel's eyes in the little old cemetery of nameless and savage dead
at Ste. Anne de Beaupré; he heard the tolling of the ancient bell in
the church that had stood on the hillside for more than two hundred
and fifty years; and he could hear Deane's voice as he told Isobel the
story of that bell and how, in the days of old, it had often called
the settlers in to fight against the Indians. And then, as he read on,
he could feel the sudden thrill in Deane's blood when Isobel had told
him who she was, and that Pierre Radisson, one of the great lords of
the north, had been her great-grandfather; that he had brought
offerings to the little old church, and that he had fought there and
died close by, and that his body was somewhere among the nameless and
unmarked dead. It was a beautiful story, and MacVeigh saw more of it
between the lines than could ever have been printed. Once he had gone
to Ste. Anne de Beaupré to see the pilgrims and the miracles there,
and there flashed before him the sunlit slope overlooking the broad
St. Lawrence, where Isobel and Deane had afterward met, and where she
had told him how large a part the little old cracked bell, the ancient
church, and the plot of nameless dead had played in her life ever
since she could remember. His blood grew hot as he read of what
followed the beginning of love at the pilgrims' shrine. Isobel had no
father or mother, the paper said. Her uncle and guardian was an iron
master of the old blood— the blood that had been a part of the
wilderness and the great company since the day the first "gentlemen
adventurers" came over with Prince Rupert. He lived alone with Isobel
in a big white house on the top of a hill, shut in by stone walls and
iron pickets, and looked out upon the world with the cold hauteur of a
feudal lord. He was young David Deane's enemy from the moment he first
heard about him, largely because he was nothing more than a struggling
mining engineer, but chiefly because he was an American and had come
from across the border. The stone walls and iron pickets were made a
barrier to him. The heavy gates never opened for him. Then had come
the break. Isobel, loyal in her love, had gone to Deane. The story
ended there.

For a few moments Billy stood with the paper in his hand, the type a
blur before his eyes. He could almost see Isobel's old home in
Montreal. It was on the steep, shaded road leading up to Mount Royal,
where he had once watched a string of horses "tacking" with their
two-wheeled carts of coal in their arduous journey to Sir George
Allen's basement at the end of it. He remembered how that street had
held a curious sort of fascination for him, with its massive stone
walls, its old French homes, and that old atmosphere still clinging to
it of the Montreal of a hundred years ago. Twelve years before he had
gone there first and carved his name on the wooden stairway leading to
the top of the mountain. Isobel had been there then. Perhaps it was
she he had heard singing behind one of the walls.

He put the paper with the letters, making a note of the uncle's name.
If anything happened it would be his duty to send word to him—
perhaps. And then, deliberately, he tore into little pieces the slip
of paper on which he had written the name. Geoffrey Renaud had cast
off his niece. And if she died why should he— Billy MacVeigh— tell
him anything about little Isobel? Since Isobel's terrible castigation
of himself and the Law duty had begun to hold a diferent meaning for
him.

Several times during the next hour Billy listened at the door. Then he
made some tea and toast and took the broth from the stove. He went
into the room, leaving these on the hearth of the stove so that they
would not grow cold. He heard Isobel move, and as he went to her side
she gave a little breathless cry.

"David— David— is it you?" she moaned. "Oh, David, I'm so glad you
have come!"

Billy stood over her. In the darkness his face was ashen gray, for
like a flash of fire in the lightless room the truth rushed upon him.
Shock and fever had done their work. And in her delirium Isobel
believed that he was Deane, her husband. In the gloom he saw that she
was reaching up her arms to him.

"David!" she whispered; and in her voice there were a love and
gladness that thrilled and terrified him to the quick of his soul.

In the space of silence that followed Isobel's whispered words there
came to Billy a realization of the crisis which he faced. The thought
of surrendering himself to his first impulse, and of taking Deane's
place in these hours of Isobel's fever, filled him instantly with a
revulsion that sent him back a step from the bed, his hands clenched
until his nails hurt his calloused palms.

"No, no, I am not David," he began, but the words died in his throat.

To tell her that, to make her know the truth— that her husband was
dead— might kill her now. Hope, belief that he was alive and with
her, would help to make her live. So quickly that he could not have
spoken his thoughts in words these things flashed upon him. If Deane
were alive and at her side his presence would save her. And if she
believed that he was Deane he would save her. In the end she would
never know. He remembered how Pelliter had forgotten things that had
happened in his delirium. To Isobel, when she awakened into sanity, it
would only seem like a dream at most. A few words from him then would
convince her of that. If necessary, he would tell her that she had
talked much about David in her fever and had imagined him with her.
She would have no suspicion that he had played that part.

Isobel had waited a moment, but now she whispered again, as if a
little frightened at his silence.

"David— David—"

He stepped back quickly to the bed and his hands met those reaching up
to him. They were hot and dry, and Isobel's fingers tightened about
his own almost fiercely, and drew his hands down on her breast. She
gave a sigh, as though she would rest easier now that his hands were
touching her.

"I have been making some broth for you," he said, scarcely daring to
speak. "Will you take some of it, Isobel? You must— and sleep."

He felt the pressure of Isobel's hands, and she spoke to him so calmly
that for a breath he thought that she must surely be herself again.

"I don't like the dark, David," she said. "I can't see you. And I want
to do up my hair. Will you bring in a light?"

"Not until you are better," he whispered. "A light will hurt your
eyes. I will stay with you— near you—"

She raised a hand in the darkness, and it stroked his face. In that
touch were all the love and gentleness that had lived for the man who
was dead, and the caress thrilled Billy until it seemed as though what
was in his heart must burst forth in a sobbing breath. Suddenly her
hand left his face, and he heard her moving restlessly.

"My hair— David—"

He put out a hand, and it fell in the soft smother of her hair. It was
tangled about her face and neck, and he lifted her gently while he
drew out the thick masses of it. He did not dare to speak while he
smoothed out the rich tresses and pleated them into a braid. Isobel
sighed restfully when he had done.

"I am going to get the broth now," he said then.

He went into the outer room where the lamp was lighted. Not until he
took up the cup of broth did he notice how his hand trembled. A bit of
the broth spilled on the floor, and he dropped a piece of the toast.
He, too, was passing through the crucible with Isobel Deane.

He went back and lifted her so that her head rested against his
shoulder and the warmth of her hair lay against his cheek and neck.
Obediently she ate the half-dozen bits of toast he moistened in the
broth, and then drank a few sips of the liquid. She would have rested
there after that, with her face turned against his, and Billy knew
that she would have slept. But he lowered her gently to the pillow.

"You must go to sleep now," he urged, softly. "Good night—"

"David!"

"Yes—"

"You— you— haven't— kissed— me—"

There was a childish plaint in her voice, and with a sob in his own
breath he bent over her. For an instant her arms clung about his neck.
He felt the sweet, thrilling touch of her warm lips, and then he drew
himself back; and, with her "Good night, David" following him to the
door, he went into the outer room, and with a strange, broken cry
flung himself on the cot in which Couchée had slept.

It was an hour before he raised his face from the blankets. Yet he had
not slept. In that hour, and in the half-hour that had preceded it in
Isobel's room, there had come lines into his face which made him look
older. Once Isobel had kissed him, and he had treasured that kiss as
the sweetest thing that had come to him in all his life. And to-night
she had given him more than that, for there had been love, and not
gratitude alone, in the warmth of her lips, in the caress of her hands
and arms, and in the pressure of her feverish face against his own.
But they brought him none of the pleasure of that which she had given
to him on the Barren. Grief-stricken, he rose and faced the door. In
spite of the fact that he knew there was no alternative for him, he
regarded himself as worse than a thief. He was taking an advantage of
her which filled him with a repugnance for himself, and he prayed for
the hour when sanity would return to her, though it brought back the
heartbreak and despair that were now lost in the oblivion of her
fever. Always in the northland there is somewhere the dread trail of
le mort rouge, the "red death," and he was well acquainted with the
course it would have to run. He believed that the fever had stricken
Isobel the third or fourth day before, and there would follow three or
four days more in which she would not be herself. Then would come the
reaction. She would awaken to the truth then that her husband was
dead, and that he had been with her alone all that time.

He listened for a moment at the door. Isobel was resting quietly, and
he went out of the cabin without making a sound. The night had grown
blacker and gloomier. There was not a rift in the sullen darkness of
the sky over him. A wind had risen from out of the north and east,
just enough of a wind to set the tree-tops moaning and fill the
closed-in world about him with uneasy sound. He walked toward the tent
where little Isobel had been, and there was something in the air that
choked him. He wished that he had not sent all of the dogs with
McTabb. A terrible loneliness oppressed him. It was like a clammy hand
smothering his heart in its grip, and it made him sick. He turned and
looked at the light in the cabin. Isobel was there, and he had thought
that where she was he could never be lonely. But he knew now that
there lay between them a gulf which an eternity could not bridge.