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Lygon nodded his head, still holding his hands to the blaze. With ten thousand dollars he could get away into–into another world somewhere, some world where he could forget, as he forgot for a moment this afternoon when the girl said to him, “It is never too late to mend.”

Now, as he thought of her, he pulled his coat together and arranged the rough scarf at his neck involuntarily. Ten thousand dollars–but ten thousand dollars by blackmail, hush-money, the reward of fire and blood and shame! Was it to go on? Was he to commit a new crime?

He stirred, as though to shake off the net that he felt twisting round him, in the hands of the robust and powerful Dupont, on whom crime sat so lightly, who had flourished while he, Lygon, had gone lower and lower. Ten years ago he had been the better man, had taken the lead, was the master, Dupont the obedient confederate, the tool. Now, Dupont, once the rough river-driver, grown prosperous in a large way for him–who might yet be mayor of his town in Quebec–he held the rod of rule. Lygon was conscious that the fifty dollars sent him every New Year for five years by Dupont had been sent with a purpose, and that he was now Dupont’s tool. Debilitated, demoralized, how could he, even if he wished, struggle against this powerful confederate, as powerful in will as in body? Yet if he had his own way he would not go to Henderley. He had lived with a “familiar spirit” so long, he feared the issue of this next excursion into the fens of crime.

Dupont was on his feet now. “He will be here only three days more–I haf find it so. To-night it mus’ be done. As we go I will tell you what to say. I will wait at the Forks, an’ we will come back togedder. His check will do. Eef he gif at all, the check is all right. He will not stop it. Eef he have the money, it is better–sacre–yes. Eef he not gif–well, I will tell you, there is the other railway man he try to hurt, how would he like–But I will tell you on the river. Maint’nant–queeck, we go.”

Without a word Lygon took down another coat and put it on. Doing so he concealed a weapon quickly, as Dupont stooped to pick a coal for his pipe from the blaze. Lygon had no fixed purpose in taking a weapon with him; it was only a vague instinct of caution that moved him.

In the canoe on the river, in an almost speechless apathy, he heard Dupont’s voice giving him instructions.

Henderley, the financier, had just finished his game of whist and dismissed his friends–it was equivalent to dismissal, rough yet genial as he seemed to be, so did immense wealth and its accompanying power affect his relations with those about him. In everything he was “considered.” He was in good-humor, for he had won all the evening, and with a smile he rubbed his hands among the notes–three thousand dollars it was. It was like a man with a pocketful of money chuckling over a coin he had found in the street. Presently he heard a rustle of the inner tent-curtain and swung round. He faced the man from the reedy lake.

Instinctively he glanced round for a weapon, mechanically his hands firmly grasped the chair in front of him. He had been in danger of his life many times, and he had no fear. He had been threatened with assassination more than once, and he had got used to the idea of danger; life to him was only a game.

He kept his nerve; he did not call out; he looked his visitor in the eyes.

“What are you doing here? Who are you?” he said.

“Don’t you know me?” answered Lygon, gazing intently at him.

Face to face with the man who had tempted him to crime, Lygon had a new sense of boldness, a sudden feeling of reprisal, a rushing desire to put the screw upon him. At sight of this millionaire with the pile of notes before him there vanished the sickening hesitation of the afternoon, of the journey with Dupont. The look of the robust, healthy financier was like acid in a wound; it maddened him.