CHAPTER XXVI
TEMPTATION
That night, leaving Thornton still at supper in the little old WindsorHotel, Jan slipped away, and with Kazan at his heels, crossed thefrozen Saskatchewan to the spruce forest on the north shore. He wantedto be alone, to think, to fight with himself against a desire which wasalmost overpowering him. Once, long ago, he had laid his soul bare toJean de Gravois, and Jean had given him comfort. To-night he longed togo to Thornton, as he had gone to Jean, and to tell him the same story,and what had passed that day in the office of the sub-commissioner. Inhis heart there had grown something for Thornton that was stronger thanfriendship--something that would have made him fight for him, and diefor him, as he would have fought and died for Jean de Gravois. It was afeeling cemented by a belief that something was troublingThornton--that he, too, was filled with a loneliness and a grief whichhe was trying to conceal. And yet he fought to restrain himself fromconfiding in his new friend. It would do no good, he knew, except byrelieving him of a part of his mental burden. He walked along the shoreof the river and recrossed it again near the company's offices. Allwere dark with the exception of the sub-commissioner's room. In thatthere glowed a light. The sub-commissioner was keeping his promise. Hewas working. He worked until late, for Jan came back two hours afterand saw the light still there.
A week--it might be ten days, the sub-commissioner had told him, and itwould be over. Always something in the north drew Jan's eyes, and helooked there now, wondering what would happen to him after that weekwas over.
Lights were out and people were in bed when he and Kazan returned tothe hotel. But Thornton was up, sitting by himself in the gloom, as Janhad first seen him at Le Pas. Jan sat down beside him. There was anuneasy tremor in Thornton's voice when he said:
"Jan, did you ever love a woman--love her until you were ready andwilling to die for her?"
The suddenness of the question wrung the truth from Jan's lips in alow, choking voice. For an instant he thought that Thornton must haveguessed his secret.
"Yes, m'sieur."
Thornton leaned toward him, gripping his knees, and the misery in hisface was deeper than Jan had ever seen it before.
"I love a woman--like that," he went on tensely. "A girl--not a woman,and she is one of your people, Jan--of the north, as innocent as aflower, more beautiful to ME than--than all the women I have ever seenbefore. She is at Oxford House. I am going home to--to save myself.""Save yourself!" cried Jan. "Mon Dieu, m'sieur--does she not love you?"
"She would follow me to the end of the earth!"
"Then--"
Thornton straightened himself and wiped his pale face. Suddenly he roseto his feet and motioned for Jan to follow him. He walked swiftly outinto the night, and still faster after that, until they passed beyondthe town. From where he stopped they could look over the forests farinto the pale light of the south.
"THAT'S hell for me!" said Thornton, pointing. "It's what we callcivilization--but it's mostly hell, and it's all hell for me. It's ahell of big cities, of strife, of blood-letting, of wickedness. I neverknew how great a hell it was until I came up here--among YOU. I wish toGod I could stay--always!"
"You love her," breathed Jan. "You can stay."
"I can't," groaned Thornton. "I can't--unless--"
"What, m'sieur?"
"Unless I lose everything--but her."
Jan's fingers trembled as they sought Thornton's hand.
"And everything is--is--nothing when you give it for love andhappiness," he urged. "The great God, I know--"
"Everything," cried Thornton. "Don't you understand? I saidEVERYTHING!" He turned almost fiercely upon his companion. "I'd give upmy name--for HER. I'd bury myself back there in the forests and nevergo out of them--for HER. I'd give up fortune, friends, lose myself forever--for HER. But I can't. Good God, don't you understand?"
Jan stared. His eyes grew large and dark.
"I've spent ten years of WORSE than hell down there--with a woman,"went on Thornton. "It happens among us--frequently, this sort of hell.I came up here to get out of it for a time. You know--now. There is awoman down there who--who is my wife. She would be glad if I neverreturned. She is happy now, when I am away, and I have been happy--fora time. I know what love is. I have felt it. I have lived it. Godforgive me, but I am almost tempted to go back--to HER!"
He stopped at the change which had come in Jan, who stood as straightand as still as the blank spruce behind them, with only his eyesshowing that there was life in him. Those eyes held Thornton's. Theyburned upon him through the gray gloom as he had never seen human eyesburn before. He waited, half startled, and Jan spoke. In his voicethere was nothing of that which Thornton saw in his eyes. It was low,and soft, and though it had that which rung like steel, Thornton couldnot have understood or feared it more.
"M'sieur, how far have you gone--WITH HER?" Thornton understood andadvanced with his hands reaching out to Jan.
"Only as far as one might go with the purest thing on earth," he said."I have sinned--in loving her, and in letting her love me, but that isall, Jan Thoreau. I swear that is all!"
"And you are going back into the south?"
"Yes, I am going back into the south."
The next day Thornton did not go. He made no sign of going on thesecond day. So it was with the third, the fourth, and the fifth. Oneach of these days Jan went once, in the afternoon, to the office ofthe sub-commissioner, and Thornton always accompanied him. At times,when Jan was not looking, there was a hungry light in his eyes as hefollowed the other's movements, and once or twice Jan caught what wasleft of this look when he turned unexpectedly. He knew what was inThornton's mind, and he pitied him, grieved with him in his own heartuntil his own secret almost wrung itself from his lips. Somehow, in away that he could not understand, Thornton's sacrifice to honor, andhis despair, gave Jan strength, and a hundred times he asked himself ifa confession of his own misery would do as much for the other. Herepeated this thought to himself again and again on the afternoon ofthe ninth day, when he went to the sub-commissioner's office alone.This time Thornton had remained behind. He had left him in a gloomycorner of the hotel room from which he had not looked up when Jan wentout with Kazan.
This ninth day was the last day for Jan Thoreau. In a dazed sort of wayhe listened as the sub-commissioner told him that the work was ended.They shook hands. It was dark when Jan came out from the company'soffices, dark with a pale gloom through which the stars were beginningto glow--with a ghostly gloom, lightened still more in the north withthe rising fires of the northern lights. Alone Jan stood for a fewmoments close down to the river. Across from him was the forest,silent, black, reaching to the end of the earth, and over it, like asignal light, beckoning him back to his world, the aurora sent out itsshafts of red and gold. And as he listened there came to him faintly adistant wailing sound that he knew was the voice from that world, andat the sound the hair rose along Kazan's spine, and he whined deep downin his throat. Jan's breath grew quicker, his blood warmer. Overthere--across the river--his world was calling to him, and he, JanThoreau, was now free to go. This very night he would bury himself inthe forest again, and when he lay down to sleep it would be with hisbeloved stars above him, and the winds whispering sympathy andbrotherhood to him in the spruce tops. He would go--NOW. He would saygood-by to Thornton--and GO.
He found himself running, and Kazan ran beside him. He was breathlesswhen he came to the one lighted street of the town. He hurried to thehotel and found Thornton sitting where he had left him.
"It is ended, m'sieur," he cried in a low voice. "It is over, and I amgoing. I am going to-night."
Thornton rose. "To-night," he repeated.
"Yes, to-night--now. I am going to pick up my things. Will you come?"
He went ahead of Thornton to the bare little room in which he had sleptwhile at the hotel. He did not notice the change in Thornton until hehad lighted a lamp. Thornton was looking at him doggedly. There was anunpleasant look in his face, a flush
about his eyes, a rigid tensenessin the muscles of his jaws.
"And I--I, too, am going to-night," he said. "Into the South, m'sieur?"
"No, into the NORTH." There was a fierceness in Thornton's emphasis. Hestood opposite Jan, leaning over the table on which the light wasplaced. "I've broken loose," he went on. "I'm not going south--back tothat hell of mine. I'm never going south again. I'm dead downthere--dead for all time. They'll never hear of me again. They can havemy fortune--everything. I'm going North. I'm going to live with YOUpeople--and God--AND HER!"
Jan sank into a chair, Thornton sat down in one across from him.
"I am going back to her," he repeated. "No one will ever know."
He could not account for the look in Jan's eyes nor for the nervoustwitching of the lithe brown hands that reached half across the table.But Kazan's one eye told him more than Thornton could guess, and inresponse to it that ominous shivering wave rose along his spine.Thornton would never know that Jan's fingers twitched for an instant intheir old mad desire to leap at a human throat.
"You will not do that," he said quietly.
"Yes, I will," replied Thornton. "I have made up my mind. Nothing canstop me but--death."
"There is one other thing that can stop you, and will, m'sieur," saidJan as quietly as before. "I, Jan Thoreau, will stop you."
Thornton rose slowly, staring down into Jan's face. The flush about hiseyes grew deeper.
"I will stop you," repeated Jan, rising also. "And I am not death."
He went to Thornton and placed his two hands upon his shoulders, and inhis eyes there glowed now that gentle light which had made Thorntonlove him as he had loved no other man on earth.
"M'sieur, I will stop you," he said again, speaking as though to abrother. "Sit down. I am going to tell you something. And when I havetold you this you will take my hand, and you will say, 'Jan Thoreau, Ithank the Great God that something like this has happened before, andthat it has come to my ears in time to save the one I love.' Sit down,m'sieur."
The Honor of the Big Snows Page 26
