_ PART II. EIGHT YEARS LATER
CHAPTER XXIII. NANCY
Bat was hurrying down the woodland trail. For once in his hard life he knew the meaning of rank cowardice. The sight of Nancy McDonald had completely robbed him of the last vestige of courage. The atmosphere of the office, that room so crowded with absorbing memories for him, had suddenly seemed to threaten suffocation. He felt he must get out. He must seek the cold, crisp air of the world he knew and understood. So he had fled.
Now he was alone with a riot of thought that was almost chaotic. There was only one thing that stood out clearly, definitely, in his mind. It was the Nemesis of the thing that had happened. It was Nemesis with a vengeance.
His busy jaws worked furiously under his emotion. He spat, and spat again, into the soft white snow. Once he stopped abruptly and gazed back over the circuitous trail. It was as though he must look again upon the thing that had so deeply stirred him, as though he must look upon it to reassure himself that he was not dreaming. That the thing had driven him headlong was real, and not some troublesome hallucination.
Nancy McDonald! The beautiful stepdaughter of Leslie Standing, with her red hair and pretty eyes, was the agent of the Skandinavia, paid to wreck the great work he and Leslie had set up. She was paid to achieve the destruction at--any cost.
It was amazing. It was overwhelming. It was even--terrible.
He pursued his way with hurried steps. And as he went his mind leapt back to the time when he had made his great appeal for the poor, deserted child shut up in the coldly correct halls of Marypoint College. What an irony it all seemed now. Then he remembered her first coming to Sachigo, and the mystery of the letter from Father Adam heralding her arrival. He had understood the moment Nancy had announced her name to him on the quay. He had understood the thought, the hope which had inspired the letter.
In his rugged heart he had welcomed the letter which Father Adam had written. He had welcomed the girl's first coming to the place he felt should be her inheritance. He had seen in those things the promise of the belated justice for which years ago he had appealed. Father Adam had asked Bull to receive her well. Why? There was only one answer to that in the lumberman's mind. Father Adam had seen her. He understood her beauty, and had fallen for it. What more reasonable then that Bull should do the same.
But that was all past and done with now. All the things he had dreamed of, and so ardently desired, had been lost through a mischievous Fate. The neglected stepdaughter of Leslie Standing was body and soul part of their enemy's armament of offence. It was all too crazy. It was all too devilish for calm contemplation.
The sight of the girl's pathetic eyes, so weary, so troubled, had been sufficient. Bat could not have remained in that room another minute. No. Down at the mill were the things he understood. They were the things he was bred to, and could deal with. These others were something that left him hopeless and helpless. So he went, determined to lay the ghost of the thing behind him in the tremendous effort the necessities of the mill demanded he should put forth.
* * * * *
Bull's emotions were deeply stirred. He gazed into the tired eyes of the girl, so beautiful for all their complete dejection. He marked the cold pallor of her cheeks, and realised the dishevelled condition of her glorious masses of hair. An intense pity left him gravely troubled.
As Nancy stood gazing up at the man, complete hopelessness oppressed her. She remembered well enough the declaration of war between them. She remembered, too, that it had meant nothing personal when it was made. At the time she had had no inkling of the terrible thing it could mean, or how nearly it could bring them into real, personal conflict.
She had been wholly unprepared for the demand that had been thrust upon her by the man, Peterman. It had frightened her at first. She had shrunk from it. Then, finally, she had accepted it as her duty, under pressure. Peterman had made it appear so trifling. A journey, a trying journey, perhaps, but one to be made with all the comfort he could provide. And then to preach to those ignorant forest-men the disaster towards which their employers were heading. As Peterman had put it, it had almost seemed a legitimate thing to do. Convinced as she had been of the disaster about to fall on Sachigo, it had seemed as if she were even doing them a service.
Had she been able to search Peterman's mind she would never have taken part in the dastardly thing he had planned. Had she been able to read him she would have quickly discovered the real motive he had in sending her. She would have discovered the furious jealousy and wounded vanity which meant her to be a prime instrument in the wrecking of Bull Sternford and his mills. She would have realised the devilish ingenuity with which he intended to wreck her friendship with another man so that he might the more truly claim her for himself. But she had no suspicion, and had blindly yielded herself to the duty she believed to be hers.
After Bat's hurried departure Bull cast about in his mind for the thing to say to her. And somehow, without realising it, the right words sprang to his lips.
"We won!" he said. And the smile accompanying his words was one of gentle raillery, and suggested nothing of the real tragedy of the thing that had happened.
The girl's eyes widened. She strove to understand the dreadful lightness with which Bull spoke. Victory? Defeat? At that moment they were the two things furthest from her mind.
Bull drew forward a chair, and gently insisted. And Nancy, accepting it, realised in a dull sort of way that it was the chair she had occupied at the time of her first visit, which now seemed so far, far back in her memory. Bull sat again in his rocker. He leant forward.
"Sure," he went on, "we've won out. Your Skandinavia's beaten. Beaten a mile. We've won, too, at less cost than I hoped. Does it grieve you?"
There was no softness or yielding in his tone. It was as he intended; the tone of a man who cares only that victory has been won. Nancy shook her head.
"I'm--I'm glad," she said desperately.
"Glad?" Bull was startled.
The girl made a little involuntary movement. She averted her gaze to the window through which the wintry sunlight was pouring.
"Oh, don't you understand? Can't you? Is the victory so much to you that you have no thought, no feeling, for the suffering it has brought? Are you so hard set on your purpose of achievement that nothing else matters? Oh, it's all dreadful. I used to feel that way. I counted no cost. Achievement? It was everything to me. And now, now that I know the thing it means I feel I--I want to die."
Bull took a strong hold upon himself.
"I know," he said slowly. "You see, Nancy, you're just a woman. You're just as tender and gentle--and--womanly, as God made you to be. He gave you a beautiful woman's heart, and a courage that was quite wonderful till it came into conflict with your heart. You had no right to be flung into this thing. And only a man of Peterman's lack of scruple could have done such a thing. Well, I'm not going to preach a long sermon, but I want to tell you some of the things I've got in my mind before I get the sleep I need. God knows that none of this thing you're blaming yourself for lies at your door. It would all have happened without you. Peterman designed it, and put it through for all he was worth. Now I want to say I'm glad--glad of it all. I've no pity for the Bolshevic dregs of Europe he employed. They were out for loot, they were out to grab the things and the power that other folks set up. Any old death that hit them they amply deserved. As for our folk who've gone under--well, we mustn't think too deeply that way. We all took our chances, and some had to go. I was ready to go. So was Bat. So were we all. We wanted victory, and we wanted it for those who survived. We honour our dead, but our lives must not be clouded by their going. It's war--human war. And just as long as the world lasts that war will always be. Good and bad men will die, and good and bad women will suffer at the sight. But for God's sake have done with the notion that you--you have anything to take to yourself, except that you've fought a good fight, and--lost. It sounds like the devil talking, doesn't it? Maybe you'll think me a monster of heartlessness. I'm not."
"Oh, I wish I could feel all that," Nancy exclaimed with an impulse which a few moments before must have been impossible.
"You can." Bull nodded. "You will."
"You think so?" Nancy sighed. "I wish I could." Suddenly she spread out her hands in a little pathetic gesture. "Oh, it all seems wrong. Everything. What am I to do? What can I do? I--I can't even think. Whichever way I look it all seems so black and hopeless. You think I can--will?"
Bull's sympathy would no longer be denied. He rose from his chair and moved to the window. His face was hidden from the troubled eyes that watched him. But his voice came back infinite in its gentleness.
"You want to do something," he said. "You want to give expression to the woman in you. And when that has happened it'll make you feel--better. I know."
He nodded. Suddenly he turned back to her, and stood smiling down into her anxious eyes.
"Tell me," he went on, "what is it you want to do? You're no prisoner now. The war's finished. You're just as free as air to come and go as you please. You can return to Quebec the moment you desire, and the
Myra comes along up. And everything I can possibly arrange shall be done for your happiness and comfort. When would you like to go?"
The girl shook her head.
"I wasn't thinking of that."
"I knew that," Bull smiled.
"Father Adam. He's in the house there sick and wounded," Nancy hurried on. "I know him. I--may I nurse him back to health and strength. May I try that way to teach myself I'm not the thing I think and feel. Oh, let me be of use. Let me help to undo the thing I've done so much to bring about."
The girl's hands were thrust out, and her eyes were shining. Never in his life had Bull experienced such an appeal. Never in his life had he been so near to reckless disregard for all restraint. He came nearer to her.
"Surely you may do that," he said. "And I just want to thank you from the bottom of my unfeeling heart for the thought that prompts you. We haven't a soul here to do it right--to do it as you can. And Father Adam is a mighty precious life to us all--in Sachigo." _