I went back to Jacqueline and took my seat upon the earth-bag barricade. I had my revolver in my hand, but it was not loaded. I threw the cartridges upon the floor.

It seemed only a few minutes before a voice hailed me from the tunnel.

"M. Hewlett! Are you prepared to speak with M. Leroux?"

It was Raoul's voice, and I answered yes.

A moment later Leroux came from the tunnel toward me. I got down from the barricade and met him at the stream. He stood upon one side and I at the other, and the stream gurgled and played between us.

"Paul Hewlett," said Leroux, "you have made a good fight. By God, you have fought well! But you are done for. I offer you terms."

"What terms?" I asked.

"The same as before."

"You planned to murder me," I answered, but with no bitterness.

"Yes, that is true," answered Leroux. "But circumstances were different then from what they are tonight. I am no murderer. I am a man of business. And, within business limits, I keep my word. If I proposed to break it, it was because I had no other way. Besides, you had me in your power. Now you are in mine.

"I thought then that you were in Carson's pay. That if I let you go you would betray--certain things you might have discovered. But you came here because you were infatuated with Mme. d'Epernay. Well, I can afford to let you go; for, though my instincts cry out loudly for your death, I am a business man, and I can suppress them when it has to be done. In brief, M. Hewlett, you can go when you choose."

"M. Leroux," I answered, "I will say something to you for your own sake, and Mme. d'Epernay's, that I would not deign to say to any other man. She is as pure as the best woman in the land. I found her wandering in the street. I saved her from the assault of your hired ruffians. I tried to procure a room for her at the Merrimac, and when they refused her, I gave up my own apartment to her and went away."

"But you went back!" he cried. "You went back, Hewlett!"

"I can tell you no more," I answered. "Do you believe what I have said to you?"

He looked hard into my face.

"Yes," he said simply. "And it makes all the difference in the world to me."

And at that moment, in spite of all, I felt something that was not far from affection toward the man.

"Pere Antoine will marry you?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"And her father?"

"Is safe in the _chateau_, playing with his wheel and amassing a fortune in his dreams."

"One word more," I continued. "Mme. d'Epernay is very ill. She was struck by one of those bullets that you fired through the door. Wait!"

for he had started. "I think that she will live. The wound cannot have pierced a vital part. But we must be very gentle in moving her.

You had better bring the sleigh here, and you and I will lift her into it. And then--I shall not see her again."

CHAPTER XXIII

LEROUX'S DIABLE

I went back toward the cave. But I could not bring myself to see Jacqueline.

Instead, I paced the tunnel to and fro, wondering what my life was going to be in future. Less than three weeks before no thought of love had stirred me, and Jacqueline was undreamed of. Now she had entered into my heart and twined herself inextricably around its roots.

That I should love her till I died I did not doubt at all.

Her last words had been in the nature of a farewell. There was no more to say. Not even good-bye. I must go before that old, insatiable longing for her arose in me again.

I saw her in my mind's eyes as clearly as though she stood before me.

Her loving, gracious presence, her sweet, pure face, her courage, her tenderness--all these were for Leroux. Nothing remained for me, except my memories.

I should have to make a great deal of my life. I had always believed that life was only a prelude to greater and finer things. I was not sure; I am not sure to-day; but if the life that is to come is not the realization of our unfulfilled desires, then nothing matters here. I was thinking of that as I paced the tunnel. And in that way I felt that, in a measure, Jacqueline was still mine.

"Everything that is free," she had said to me, "thoughts, will and dreams." That part was mine; and that could never be taken away.

I had reached the verge of the cataract and stood beside the little platform, looking down. There was no star now like that which had guided me in the morning, but the sky was fair and the air mild. I gazed in awe at the great stream of water, sending its ceaseless current down into the troubled lake below.

How many ages it had done that! Yet even that must end some day, as everything ends--even life, thank God!

And then I saw Lacroix again. I was sure of it now. He was peering after me from among the rocks, and, as I turned, he was scuttling away into the tunnel.

I followed him. I had always mistrusted the man; more, even, than Leroux. I felt that his furtive presence there portended something more evil than my own fate and Jacqueline's must be.

I followed him hotly; but he must have known every fissure in the cliff, for he vanished before my eyes, apparently through the solid rock, and when I reached the place of his disappearance I could find no sign of any passage there.

Well, there was no use in following him further. I paced the tunnel restlessly. The sleigh ought to be at the mine in five minutes more.

I turned back to take a last look at the cataract.

The sublime grandeur of those thousand tons of water, shot from the glacier's edge above, still held me in its spell of awe. I cast my eyes toward the _chateau_ and over the frozen lake toward the distant, unknown mountains.

Then I turned resolutely away.

And at that moment I heard Leroux's voice hailing me, and looked round to see him emerge from the tunnel at my side. He was staring in bewilderment at the cataract.

"Hewlett, I don't know what possessed me to take the wrong turn to-night!" he cried. "I have come through that tunnel a hundred times and never missed the path before."

He swung round petulantly, and at that moment a shadow glided out of the darkness and stood in front of him. It was Pierre Caribou, lean, sinewy and old. He blocked the path and faced Leroux in silence.

Leroux looked at him, and an oath broke from his lips as he read the other's purpose upon his face. Squaring his mighty shoulders and clenching his fists, he leaped at him headlong.

Pierre stepped quietly aside, and Simon measured his full length within the tunnel. But, when he had scrambled to his feet with a bellowing challenge, Pierre was in front of him again.

"What are you here for?" roared Leroux, but in a quavering voice that did not sound like his own. "Get out of the way or I'll smash your face!"

The Indian still blocked the passage. "Your time come now, Simon. All finish now," he answered.

Simon drew back a pace and watched him, and I heard him breathing like one who has run a race.