e silently from his bunk, filled his pipe, and sat down
in the darkness beside the stove. The storm had increased to a gale,
wailing and moaning over the cabin outside, and the sound carried
him back to the last night in the cabin far to the south, when he had
destroyed the hyacinth-scented letter. The thought of the letter moved
him restlessly. He listened to Pierrot's breathing, and knew that the
half-breed was asleep. Then he rose to his feet and laid his pipe on the
table. A curious feeling of guilt came over him as he moved toward
the box in which Jacques had placed the silken scarf. His breath came
quickly; in the dark his eyes shone; a tingling thrill of strange
pleasure shot through him as his fingers touched the thing for which
they were searching. He drew the scarf out, and returned to the stove
with it, crushing it in both his hands. The sweetness of it came to him
again like the woman's breath. It was the sweetness of her hair, of the
golden coils massed in the firelight; a part of the woman herself,
of her glorious eyes, her lips, her face--and suddenly he crushed the
fabric to his own face, and stood there, trembling in the darkness,
while Jacques Pierrot slept and the storm wailed and moaned over his
head. For he knew--now--that he would do more for this woman than
Jacques Pierrot could ever do; more, perhaps, than even the colonel,
her husband, would do. His heart seemed bursting with a new and terrible
pain, and the truth at last seemed to rise and choke him. He loved her.
He loved this woman, the wife of another man. He loved her as he had
never dreamed that he could love a woman, and with the scarf still
smothering his lips and face he stood for many minutes, silent and
motionless, gathering himself slowly from out of the appalling depths
into which he had allowed himself to plunge.

Then he folded the scarf, and instead of returning it to the box, put it
in one of the pockets of his coat.

"Pierrot won't care," he excused himself. "And it's the only thing,
little girl--the only thing--I'll ever have--of you."

Chapter V. Beauty-Proof

It was Pierrot who aroused Philip in the morning.

"Mon, Dieu, but you have slept like a bear," he exclaimed. "The storm
has cleared and it will be fine traveling. Eh--you have not heard? I
wonder why they are firing guns off toward Lac Bain!"

Philip jumped from his bed, and his first look was in the direction of
the box. He was criminal enough to hope that J