these events and, "Well, and what
next?" he asked.

The touch of spring in the air, recalling him to England and the old
days, had made him realise among other things what this marriage with
a half-breed girl, supposing he consented, must entail. It would
exile him forever. No matter howsoever well he might prosper, or rich
he might become, or whatsoever stroke of good fortune might visit him,
he could never return to his English mother and English friends,
bringing with him a half-breed wife and children who had Indian blood.
If he married her, he would become what Pilgrim had named him--an
outcast. If he did not marry her, she would refuse to live with him,
and he would be left lonely as before and would probably become
insane. Since he was never likely to become either prosperous, or
rich, or fortunate, would it not be better for him to provide for his
immediate happiness, he asked, and let the future take care of itself?
Even while he asked the question another woman intruded her face: she
was slim, and fair, and delicately made, and was disguised in the male
attire of a Yukon placer-miner. She seemed to be asking him to
remember her.

He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, as if defying Fate: turning
away from the window, he reseated himself upon the upturned box by the
red-hot stove.

Pooh! he'd been a fool to give way to retrospection. He was no
exception to the general rule; most men mismanaged their careers--more
or less. Still, he was bound to confess that he had done so rather
more than less. Oh well, he would settle down to his fate. As for that
other girl in the Yukon miner's dress, who would keep intruding
herself, she also must be forgotten.

But at that point, perversely enough, he began to think about her.
What was she doing at the present time? Where was she? Did she still
remember him? Had she made her fortune up there out of their last big
strike? How had she construed his sudden and unexplained departure? He
swore softly to himself, and rising, went over to the window again.
Then he pressed closer as if to make certain of something, gazing up
the long glimmering stretch of frozen river to the west.

There was a strange man coming down; strange to those parts, at any
rate, though Granger seemed to recognise something familiar in his
stride. He was driving his dogs furiously, lashing them on with
frenzied brutality, coming on apace, turning his head ever and again
from side to side, peering