son; that he might not do violence to
Spurling, and that he might not betray himself to her. He had left her
without a hint of his going, or a word of explanation.

What had she thought of him? He had often wondered that. Had she also
loved him, and not dared to speak about it? He half-suspected that. If
she had loved him and had spoken out, he would not have married her at
that time, when even he despised himself; to have done so would have
been to drag her down. Still, he could not help speculating as to what
she had said and thought on that morning when she awoke in the winter
dreariness, and, gazing round the cabin, found that he had vanished.
Had she regretted him, and had she sometimes, when Spurling had become
intolerable, gone aside and wept? After three years, though he had
loved her, he could only recall her by her man's name, and picture her
in her man's dress.

Then, while he thought with closed eyes, that awful question came
again, "Is Mordaunt dead?"

Whilst she was in the world it had been possible for him to strive to
be straightforward and courageous; but, _if she was dead_ . . .! If
Spurling had murdered her, if he had lied to him and _she_ was his
partner, what then? Well, that all depended on whether Spurling had
known her sex. If not, what a revenge he would take when he should
confront him, and inform him that he had murdered a woman, and not a
man! He knew Spurling; for him the public ignominy of being hanged
would be as nothing compared with such private knowledge--it would
thrust him into Hell in this life.

Ah, but that could not be; God would not allow it! Spurling himself
had said that he had not sunk so low as that. Yet, in case it might be
so, he would keep his word and help him to escape--from the Mounted
Police, but not from himself. He would be the executioner if there
must be one. The law should not rob him of his revenge. He would save
Spurling's life in case he might need to take it.

Then, unbidden and against his will, there rose up the image of the
man who had saved his life in Tagish Lake. Spurling had forestalled
him, bribed him beforehand, by restoring him his own life in exchange
for the life which he was doomed to take. Did that not make amends?
Also he had rescued Mordaunt from disaster on the Skaguay trail, where
he would certainly have perished had he been left. He had done
unconsciously that which Granger proposed to do of set purpose--saved
a life that he might take