Oh, I wanted these things,
and yet because others had molded me, and because of my misguided
Standish sense of pride and honor, I was shackling myself to
John Graham.
"In the last months preceding my twenty-second birthday I learned more
of the man than I had ever known before; rumors came to me; I
investigated a little, and I began to find the hatred, and the reason
for it, which has come to me so conclusively here in Alaska. I almost
knew, at the last, that he was a monster, but the world had been told I
was to marry him, and Sharpleigh with his fatherly hypocrisy was behind
me, and John Graham treated me so courteously and so coolly that I did
not suspect the terrible things in his heart and mind--and I went on
with the bargain. _I married him._"
She drew a sudden, deep breath, as if she had passed through the ordeal
of what she had most dreaded to say, and now, meeting the changeless
expression of Alan's face with a fierce, little cry that leaped from her
like a flash of gun-fire, she sprang to her feet and stood with her back
crushed against the tundra flowers, her voice trembling as she
continued, while he stood up and faced her.
"You needn't go on," he interrupted in a voice so low and terribly hard
that she felt the menacing thrill of it. "You needn't. I will settle
with John Graham, if God gives me the chance.
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