nsidered no one but yourself. How far will you carry
your desire for vengeance?"

"I don't get you----"

"Wait! I told you it was killing me up here. That didn't seem to influence
you much--but suppose there is someone else to be considered----"

"What are you saying?"

"Are you blind? Can't you guess? The other person is as yet unborn."

His eyes were blind with pain. He gripped a chair and swayed dizzily. His
mouth moved, but uttered no sound. When at last he spoke the words came as
though forced from a clutched throat.

"Not that!--God, you don't mean that? Tell me you don't mean
that--Angela----"

She sank her head on her bosom and a sob escaped her. The next moment her
head was jerked up and she was gazing into his steely fixed eyes.

"Was it--that man--D'Arcy?"

Another sob convinced him. He flung her arm aside and walked to the door.
He had encountered hardships, disappointments, physical and mental pain,
but nothing like this devastating destroyer that was gripping him. He
stumbled out of the shack like a terribly sick man.

"Oh God!" he groaned. "And I loved her!"

She had won--won by means so foul that he would have died rather than that
truth should have become known to him. All life was rotten, rotten to the
core! Heaven was uprooted and legions of devils usurped the throne of the
Almighty. He unlatched the outhouse and feverishly harnessed six of the
dogs to the sled.

Trembling and ill, he crept into the shack to find her vanished to the
inner room. He divided up the food in two equal portions, placed half his
small financial funds inside a flour-sack, where he knew she would find
it, and piled the things onto the sled. Then he called her in a low,
almost inaudible, voice. She came from the inner room, closely swathed in
furs and with her head sunk.

"The sled's outside.... You can mush the dogs.... They're the tamest
six.... Fort Yukon is down the river, and the weather's good...."

She nodded and walked through the door. The Arctic moon, shedding a queer
blue radiance over the snow hung high in the black vault. Directly
overhead the Great Bear gleamed like hanging lamps, with magnificent Vega
blazing like a rich jewel. She turned to him once.

"Jim!"

"Go! Go! Follow the river.... Good--good-bye!"

A choking response came back. The whip cracked and the dogs moved forward.
In a few minutes she was a black blur against the scintillating snow. With
a groan he turned about and went insid