"I'm afraid, dear, I shall never be that again," she said sorrowfully; "but am I any the worse for knowing? Why should you men want to keep all such knowledge to yourselves? Is our innocence simply to be another name for ignorance?"
She put her arms round my neck and kissed me fervently.
"Oh, no, my dear, my dear. I have seen the vileness of things, and it only makes me more in love with love and beauty. We'll go, you and I, to Italy very soon, and forget, forget. Even if we have to toil like peasants in the vineyards we'll go, far, far away."
So I felt strengthened, stimulated, gladdened, and, as I lay on my bunk listening to the merry crackle of the wood fire, I was in a purring lethargy of content. Then I remembered something.
"Oh, say, boys, I forgot to tell you. I met McCrimmon down the creek. You remember him on the trail, the Halfbreed. He was asking after you both; then all at once he said he wanted to see us on important business. He has a proposal to make, he says, that would be greatly to our advantage. He's coming along this evening.--What's the matter, Jim?"
Jim was staring blankly at one of the letters he had received. His face was a picture of distress, misery, despair. Without replying, he went and knelt down by his bed. He sighed deeply. Slowly his face grew calm again; then I saw that he was praying. We were silent in respectful sympathy, but when, in a little, he got up and went out, I followed him.
"I've had a letter that's upset me. I'm in a terrible position. If ever I wanted strength and guidance, I want it now."
"Yes, it's him, all right; it's Mosher. I suspicioned it all along. Here's a letter from my brother. He says there's no doubt that Mosher is Moseley."
His eyes were stormy, his face tragic in its bitterness.
"Oh, you don't know how I worshipped that woman, trusted her, would have banked my life on her; and when I was away making money for her she ups and goes away with that slimy reptile. In the old days I would have torn him to pieces, but now----"
"What am I to do? What am I to do? The Good Book says forgive your enemies, but how can I forgive a wrong like that? And my poor girl--he deserted her, drove her to the streets. Ugh! if I could kill him by slow torture, gloat over his agony--but I can't, can I?"