"No, hectoring never does any good. And as for the wildness, if the
heart of him's right, why that's easy out of him whin he's older. It's a
fine lad I thought him, the time I saw him here. It's his freedom I wish
I had--me that has to travel all day and part of the night, and thin part
of the day and all night back again, and thin a day of sleep and the same
thing over again. And that's the life of me, sayin' nothin' of the frost
and the blizzards, and no home to go to, and no one to have a meal for me
like this whin I turn up." And the sergeant wound up with, "Whooroo!
there's a speech for you, Miss!" and laughed good-humouredly. For all
that, there was in his eyes an appeal that went straight to Jen's heart.

But, woman-like, she would not open the way for him to say anything more
definite just yet. She turned the subject. And yet again, woman-like,
she knew it would lead to the same conclusion:

"You must go to-night?"

"Yes, I must."

"Nothing--nothing would keep you?"

"Nothing. Duty is duty, much as I'd like to stay, and you givin' me the
bid. But my orders were strict. You don't know what discipline means,
perhaps. It means obeyin' commands if you die for it; and my commands
were to take a letter to Inspector Jules at Archangel's Rise to-night.
It's a matter of murder or the like, and duty must be done, and me that
sleepy, not forgettin' your presence, as ever a man was and looked the
world in the face."

He drank the rest of the coffee and mechanically set the cup down, his