“Yes, I did.”
The confession almost startled him. It seemed
an amazing confidence to be making under any circumstances,
and especially upon such brief acquaintance.
But he said no more, though in Ellen McCormick’s
face and eyes was a tremulous expectancy. He
stepped into the little room which had been his sleeping
place, and returned with his dunnage-sack. Out
of this he took the bag in which were Mary Standish’s
belongings, and gave it to Sandy’s wife.
It was a matter of business now, and he tried to speak
in a businesslike way.
“Her things are inside. I got them in her
cabin. If you find her, after I am gone, you
will need them. You understand, of course.
And if you don’t find her, keep them for me.
I shall return some day.” It seemed hard
for him to give his simple instructions. He went
on: “I don’t think I shall stay any
longer, but I will leave a certified check at Cordova,
and it will be turned over to your husband when she
is found. And if you do find her, you will look
after her yourself, won’t you, Mrs. McCormick?”
Ellen McCormick choked a little as she answered him,
promising to do what he asked. He would always
remember her as a sympathetic little thing, and half
an hour later, after he had explained everything to
Sandy, he wished her happiness when he took her hand
in saying good-by. Her hand was trembling.
He wondered at it and said something to Sandy about
the priceless value of a happiness such as his, as
they went down to the beach.
The velvety darkness of the sky was athrob with the
heart-beat of stars, when the Norden’s
shimmering trail led once more out to sea. Alan
looked up at them, and his mind groped strangely in
the infinity that lay above him. He had never
measured it before. Life had been too full.
But now it seemed so vast, and his range in the tundras
so far away, that a great loneliness seized upon him
as he turned his eyes to look back at the dimly white
shore-line dissolving swiftly in the gloom that lay
beneath the mountains.
That night, in Olaf’s cabin, Alan put himself
back on the old track again. He made no effort
to minimize the tragedy that had come into his life,
and he knew its effect upon him would never be wiped
away, and that Mary Standish would always live in
his thoughts, no matter what happened in the years
to come. But he was not the sort to let any part
of himself wither up and die because of a blow that
had darkened his mental visions of things. His
plans lay ahead of him, his old ambitions and his
dreams of achievement. They seemed pulseless and
dead now, but he knew it was because his own fire
had temporarily burned out. And he realized the
vital necessity of building it up again. So he
first wrote a letter to Ellen McCormick, and in this
placed a second letter—carefully sealed—which
was not to be opened unless they found Mary Standish,
