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Page 39
"Yes," she whispered, and her hand sought his again and crept into it,
warm and confident.
XV
They went on through the golden morning, the earth damp under their
feet, the air filled with its sweet incense, on past scattered clumps
of balsams and cedars until they came to the river and looked down on
its yellow sand-bars glistening in the sun. The town was hidden. They
heard no sound from it. And looking up the great Saskatchewan, the
river of mystery, of romance, of glamour, they saw before them, where
the spruce walls seemed to meet, the wide-open door through which they
might pass into the western land beyond. Keith pointed it out. And he
pointed out the yellow bars, the glistening shores of sand, and told
her how even as far as this, a thousand miles by river--those sands
brought gold with them from the mountains, the gold whose
treasure-house no man had ever found, and which must be hidden up there
somewhere near the river's end. His dream, like Duggan's, had been to
find it. Now they would search for it together.
Slowly he was picking his way so that at last they came to the bit of
cleared timber in which was his old home. His heart choked him as they
drew near. There was an uncomfortable tightness in his breath. The
timber was no longer "clear." In four years younger generations of life
had sprung up among the trees, and the place was jungle-ridden. They
were within a few yards of the house before Mary Josephine saw it, and
then she stopped suddenly with a little gasp. For this that she faced
was not desertion, was not mere neglect. It was tragedy. She saw in an
instant that there was no life in this place, and yet it stood as if
tenanted. It was a log chateau with a great, red chimney rising at one
end curtains and shades still hung at the windows. There were three
chairs on the broad veranda that looked riverward. But two of the
windows were broken, and the chairs were falling into ruin. There was
no life. They were facing only the ghosts of life.
A swift glance into Keith's face told her this was so. His lips were
set tight. There was a strange look in his face. Hand in hand they had
come up, and her fingers pressed his tighter now.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It is John Keith's home as he left it four years ago," he replied.
The suspicious break in his voice drew her eyes from the chateau to his
own again. She could see him fighting. There was a twitching in his
throat. His hand was gripping hers until it hurt.
"John Keith?" she whispered softly.
"Yes, John Keith."
She inclined her head so that it rested lightly and affectionately
against his arm.
"You must have thought a great deal of him, Derry."
"Yes."
He freed her hand, and his fists clenched convulsively. She could feel
the cording of the muscles in his arm, his face was white, and in his
eyes was a fixed stare that startled her. He fumbled in a pocket and
drew out a key.
"I promised, when he died, that I would go in and take a last look for
him," he said. "He loved this place. Do you want to go with me?"
She drew a deep breath. "Yes."
The key opened the door that entered on the veranda. As it swung back,
grating on its rusty hinges, they found themselves facing the chill of
a cold and lifeless air. Keith stepped inside. A glance told him that
nothing was changed--everything was there in that room with the big
fireplace, even as he had left it the night he set out to force justice
from Judge Kirkstone. One thing startled him. On the dust-covered table
was a bowl and a spoon. He remembered vividly how he had eaten his
supper that night of bread and milk. It was the littleness of the
thing, the simplicity of it, that shocked him. The bowl and spoon were
still there after four years. He did not reflect that they were as
imperishable as all the other things about; the miracle was that they
were there on the table, as though he had used them only yesterday. The
most trivial things in the room struck him deepest, and he found
himself fighting hard, for a moment, to keep his nerve.
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