He made a full confession of the betrayal of his trust; he expressed repentence, and he did not ask for mercy. The letters were sealed and lying on the table when Hensham came back, and the vigorous young fellow exclaimed at the white tired face.
"I say! You're fagged out, Heriot. I should have come in before. I'm so sorry."
"You're a good chap, Hensham." There was no mockery in Dick's smile just now. "I'll have to pass all you've done for me on to the next man, for you don't look a fit subject for medical administrations."
"I've done nothing." Hensham reddened. "You—you're so awfully brickish about it all, you know."
"Am I? That's an unusual accusation. Yes; those are the letters. You can stamp them. Thanks."
He watched them go with a curious half-wonder in his eyes. Why should he feel relief at having done a thing which was probably going to damn him in the eyes of the world? What had taught him that if a man puts himself right with himself he can afford to face what that world may say? And why was it putting him right with himself to do a foolish and quixotic thing?
Baskerville came in and interrupted his meditations; and Dick, with a sudden swing of the pendulum, said several unusually nasty things to him. But Baskerville met them with the tolerance one shows a man who may be crippled for life. Dick understood the reason, and it did not sweeten his temper. Natural reaction had set in, and he spent a wretched night. But he did not ask for the letters back again. His weaknessess seldom took the form of retraction in any way. Through the following weeks and months that grew to spring he never thought once of making confession to Hensham. This was not Hensham's business, nor the business of any save the two who would know by now, and Dick was not the man to fling himself to penitential extremes.
Careful nursing and time brought power back to the maimed foot, little by little. But the ice was gone and the canoes were on the river before Dick went south again. He took Indians with him from post to post, leaving the last one at Simpson, and paddling the long stage into Fort
