"He knew his power with women. I beg your pardon——"
"Please don't. He has been quite honest with me, so there is no need."
There was silence again until Tempest straightened himself and looked at her.
"You make me ashamed," he said. "I have seen your gentleness and your care of Ducane, and now I have seen—something that I can't speak about. I had thought we men of the Mounted Police were doing a great thing for Canada. But perhaps when all is made clear we'll understand that some of the greatest things done here have been done by the women. You—you still intend to look after him?"
"So long as I can. If they imprison him I shall get rooms near the prison. He needs me."
"I shall be in the North later, as I told you. But my leave lasts four months yet, and if you want me during that time you know how gladly I will come. And if ever there is anything I can do and that I can free myself for you, will you tell me?"
"I surely will." She stood up and gave him her hand. "I hope I have helped you, for your sympathy has helped me. There are certain things which one cannot fight against. We have to order our lives from that standpoint. But there are so many things which we can. And, after all, the epitome of Life is battle and conquest, isn't it?"
"Or defeat"
"There are high defeats which are better than low conquests," said Jennifer, and her words stayed with him when she went away and left him alone by the dying fire.
Would not those words of Jennifer's apply to more than the abstract case? Had he not himself been seeking conquest along infinitely lower lines than this high defeat which had overtaken Jennifer and Dick? Nature had insisted that he should love Andree even as it had insisted that Dick should love Jennifer. But must a man always accept Nature's ordinances from end to end? Is it not against old Nature that her sons and daughters have to do their fighting with conscience as the umpire? Tempest
