Part 22 (1/2)
Finally, Tiested that they turn in But McTavish was restless He slipped on his snowshoes, declared he would be back shortly, and left the tent The nervous reaction of all the excitement of the last day was in hi and buffeting of the stor of his brain and settle hi his _capote_ close around his face, he bent to the blast, and shuffled along Suddenly, he felt the nearness of a presence, and raised his head, just in ti cabin He recoiled with a muttered curse, for there was only one cabin in the settleed to Fitzpatrick, and now it belonged to sonawed at McTavish's heart all day Once, during the afternoon, when he was secretly arranging for Peter Rainy's supplies, he had seen her at a distance, and she had waved to him, happily What did she know? he wondered Had her father done his worst, and told her? Now, his arht body; he yearned to hear her voice, to look into her face
Suddenly, so to the storm as he had done, bumped full into hi your pardon!
”Jean!” he cried joyously, and she raised her head
”Donald!”
The next Instant, she was in his ar to him with an abandon of passion he had never suspected in her It thrilled him from head to foot Presently, he led her froe tree at the edge of the camp
”Oh, I couldn't sleep; I couldn't even try, so I told father I was going to take a turn or tn the main 'street' of tents,” she cried, in answer to Donald's question ”And to think of lad, princess?” he asked, trying to pierce the gloom and the storm to see the expression of her face ”Hasn't he told you?”
”Who told , he and I had a very unpleasant interview, in which he opened up all his big guns He finally silenced me entirely What the trouble was, and what influences he brought to bear, I can't tell you, Jean If he wants you to know, he'll tell you It is his object to ruin ht He has the facts, and, I fear, the proofs, that e between us almost an impossibility; at any rate I'm sure your father would shoot me before he would let the event take place”
”Oh, what is it, Donald? You frighten htenof you to tellDo you suppose I care whether my father will allow us to marry or not? No, no, Donald; I think for myself now, as you once said I should Perhaps, I think too irl had stopped, as though embarrassed
”I mean--I know you'll be ashaht--Mr Gates is in camp, and he will--”
”Marry us?”
”Yes, Donald” And she hid her face against hiht her close during a delicious moment, for the storroan, he released her
”Jean,” he said earnestly, ”I can't do it I would sell ht--yes, actually sell it to the devil; but, as a s, I can't Oh, it simply kills me, this refusal; but the fact of it is that I love you too much to risk your future happiness”
”Oh, boy, boy!” she cried pitifully ”What can be happiness for , I want you
Whatever this awful thing is that is ruining our lives, I don't cafe I only know one thing, and that is _I want you!_”
Had he knoomen as some men know them, Donald would have taken her tone and her passion as passports to heaven, and hunted up the fat and spectacled Mr Gates then and there, and this story would have ended But he did not He was straightforward and unsophisticated in a manly way, and knew his duty; and he also kneas not now that Jean ret her step, but at that important point of life Pinero has so aptly named ”mid-channel,” when the fire of youth has burned out, and the
So, with the perfume of happiness in his nostrils, he put the temptation from him, and told Jean over and over that shefor the best when he laid their lives out on such lines of misery And she, after a while, believed, as he desired, and asked no ainst him would
”You'll hear s about me that are not true, and never could be,” Donald said at the last; ”but don't believe the All I ask is your faith and trust in h the valley of the shadow, that in the end, some time, somewhere, we may be happy”
”Those you shall have always,” was the reply; ”and so else, too, whenever you want it”
”What is that?”
”A wife”
He kissed her full upon the lips, and reluctantly let her go