“Bateese will make you comfortable, m’sieu.”

The door opened and closed.  She was gone.  And he was alone in the cabin again.

The swiftness of the change in her amazed him.  It was as if he had suddenly touched fire to an explosive.  There had been the flare, but no violence.  She had not raised her voice, yet he heard in it the tremble of an emotion that was consuming her.  He had seen the flame of it in her face and eyes.  Something he had said, or had done, had tremendously upset her, changing in an instant her attitude toward him.  The thought that came to him made his face burn under its scrub of beard.  Did she think he was a scoundrel?  The dropping of his hand, the shock that must have betrayed itself in his face when she said she was St. Pierre’s wife—­had those things warned her against him?  The heat went slowly out of his face.  It was impossible.  She could not think that of him.  It must have been a sudden giving way under terrific strain.  She had compared herself to Roger Audemard, and she was beginning to realize her peril—­that Bateese was right—­that she should have left him to die in the sand!

The thought pressed itself heavily upon Carrigan.  It brought him suddenly back to a realization of how small a part he had played in this last half hour in the cabin.  He had offered to Pierre’s wife a friendship which he had no right to offer and which she knew he had no right to offer.  He was the Law.  And she, like Roger Audemard, was a criminal.  Her quick woman’s instinct had told her there could be no distinction between them, unless there was a reason.  And now Carrigan confessed to himself that there had been a reason.  That reason had come to him with the first glimpse of her as he lay in the hot sand.  He had fought against it in the canoe; it had mastered him in those thrilling moments when he had beheld this slim, beautiful creature riding fearlessly into the boiling waters of the Holy Ghost.  Her eyes, her hair, the sweet, low voice that had been with him in his fever, had become a definite and unalterable part of him.  And this must have shown in his eyes and face when he dropped his hand—­when she told him she was St. Pierre’s wife.

And now she was afraid of him!  She was regretting that she had not left him to die.  She had misunderstood what she had seen betraying itself during those few seconds of his proffered friendship.  She saw only a man whom she had nearly killed, a man who represented the Law, a man whose power held her in the hollow of his hand.  And she had stepped back from him, startled, and had told him that she was not St. Pierre’s daughter, but his wife!