Gower shook himself.

"No," he declared slowly. "He interfered with the Morton interests in
that Claha logging camp, and they did whatever was done. The quarry
business I know nothing about, except that I had business dealings with
the people whom he ran foul of. I tell you, MacRae, after the first
short period of time when I was afire with the fury of jealousy, I did
not do these things. I didn't even want to do them. I wish you would get
that straight. I wanted Bessie Morton and I got her. That was an issue
between us, I grant. I gained my point there. I would have gone farther
to gain that point. But I paid for it. It was not so long before I knew
that I was going to pay dearly for it. I tell you I came to envy Donald
MacRae. I don't know if he nursed a disappointment--which I came to know
was an illusion. Perhaps he did. But he had nothing real to regret,
nothing to prick, prick him all the time. He married a woman who seemed
to care for him. At any rate, she respected him and was a mate, living
his life while she did live.

"Look, MacRae. I married Bessie Morton because I wanted her, wanted her
on any terms. She didn't want me. She wanted Donald MacRae. But she had
wanted other men. That was the way she was made. She was facile. And
she never loved any one half so much as she loved herself. She was only
a beautiful peacock preening her feathers and sighing for homage. She
was--she is--the essence of self from the top of her head to her shoes.
Her feelings, her wants, her wishes, her whims, her two-by-four outlook,
nothing else counted. She couldn't comprehend anything outside of
herself. She would have made Donald MacRae's life a misery to him when
the novelty of that infatuation wore off. The Mortons are like that.
They want everything. They give nothing.

"She was cowardly too. Do you think two old men and myself would have
taken her, or anything else, from your father out in the middle of the
Gulf, if she had had any spirit? You knew your father. He wasn't a tame
man. He would have fought--fought like a tiger. We might have killed
him. It is more likely that he would have killed us. But we could not
have beaten him. But she had to knuckle down--take the easy way for her.
She cried; and he promised."

Gower lay back in his chair. His chin sunk on his breast. He spoke
slowly, groping for his words. MacRae did not interrupt. Something
compelled him to listen. There was a pained ring in Gower's voice that
he