He saw clearly what he had done and what was ahead
of him. He was twice a killer of men now, and each time the killing had
rid the earth of a snake. This last time it had been an exceedingly
good job. Even McDowell would concede that, and Miriam Kirkstone, on
her knees, would thank God for what he had done. But Canadian law did
not split hairs like its big neighbor on the south. It wanted him at
least for Kirkstone's killing if not for that of Kao, the Chinaman. No
one, not even Mary Josephine, would ever fully realize what he had
sacrificed for the daughter of the man who had ruined his father. For
Mary Josephine would never understand how deeply he had loved her.
It surprised him to find how naturally he fell back into his old habit
of discussing things with himself, and how completely and calmly he
accepted the fact that his home-coming had been but a brief and
wonderful interlude to his fugitivism. He did not know it at first, but
this calmness was the calmness of a despair more fatal than the menace
of the hangman.
"They won't catch me," he encouraged himself. "And she won't tell them
where I'm going. No, she won't do that." He found himself repeating
that thought over and over again.
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