VIII

When Oskar Hedin left the store at the closing hour, he went directly
to his hotel, bolted a hasty luncheon, slipped into outdoor togs and a
half hour later was silently threading an old log-trail that bit deep
into the jack-pines. Mile after mile he glided smoothly along that
silent winding white lane, his skis making no sound in the soft, deep
snow.

Just beyond a swamp, in the centre of a wide clearing, surrounded upon
three sides by the encroaching jack-pines and poplars, and upon the
fourth by a broad bend of the river, Hedin removed his skis and seated
himself upon a rotting log of a tumbled-down cabin, there to think.

So, that's why she wanted a new coat? She was going out for the
evening with Wentworth. And she invited Wentworth to go tobogganing,
on this particular afternoon of all others, when he had intended to
whisper in her ear, as the toboggan flew down the steep grade, the
thing that had been uppermost in his mind for a year. And she had
asked her father to give him a job. Of course, what could be simpler?
A man can manage to exist, somehow, without a job--but with two a job
is essential.

He laughed, a short, hard laugh that ended in a sneer. Well, he had
been a fool--that's all. He had served her purpose, had been the poor
dupe upon whom she had practised her wiles, a plaything, to be lightly
tossed aside for a new toy. Some day, too late perhaps, she would see
her mistake, and then she would suffer, even as he was suffering