nearer Tisdale. "You are the sanest man in the world in every way but one.
But you can't think straight when it comes to Weatherbee. There is where
the north got its hold on you. Can't you see it? Look at it through my
eyes, or any one's. You did for David Weatherbee what one man in a
thousand might have done. And you've interested Lucky Banks in that
reclamation project; you've gone on yourself with his developments at the
Aurora. But there's one thing you've lost sight of--justice to Beatriz
Weatherbee. You've done your best for him, but he is dead. Hollis, old
man, I tell you he is dead. And she is living. You have sent her, the
proudest, sweetest woman on God's earth, to brave out her life in that
sage-brush wilderness. Can't you see you owe something to her?"

Tisdale did not reply. But presently he went over to his safe and took out
the two documents that were fastened together. This time it was the will
he returned to its place; the other paper he brought to Foster. "I am
going to apologize for my estimate of Mrs. Weatherbee the night you sailed
north," he said. "My judgment then, before I had seen her, was unfair; you
were right. But I could hardly have done differently in any case. There
was danger that she would dispose of a half interest in the Aurora at
once, at any low price Frederic Morganstein might name. And you know the
syndicate's methods. I did not want a Morganstein partnership. But, later,
at the time I had my will drawn, I saw this way."

Foster took the document, but he did not read it immediately; he stood
looking at Tisdale. "So you too were afraid of him. But I knew nothing
about Lucky Banks' option. It worried me, those endless nights up there in
the Iditarod, to think that in her extremity she might marry Frederic
Morganstein. There was a debt that pressed her. Did you know about that?"

"Yes. She called it a 'debt of honor.'"

"And you believed, as I did, that it was a direct loan to cover personal
expenses. After I came home, I found out she borrowed the money originally
of Miss Morganstein, to endow a bed in the children's hospital. Think of
it! And Mrs. Feversham, who took it off her sister's hands, transferred
the note to Morganstein."

Tisdale did not say anything, but his rugged face worked a little, and he
turned again to look out into the night. Foster moved nearer the
reading-lamp and unfolded the document. It was a deed conveying, for a
consideration of one dollar, a half inte