There was silence. The sullenness about the missionary's lips became
charged with a contempt more animal than human. The Reverend Ezra
Badgley knew that the man before him was absolute in his determination,
and that the Pagans of Fort Anne would show him little mercy, while his
flock would leave him to his fate. He looked at the bottle. The silence
grew, so that the ticking of the watch in the missionary's pocket could
be heard plainly, having for its background of sound the continuous swish
of the river. Pretty Pierre's eyes were never taken off the other, whose
gaze, again, was fixed upon the bottle with a terrible fascination. An
hour, two hours, passed. The fire burned lower. It was midnight; and
now the watch no longer ticked; it had fulfilled its day's work. The
missionary shuddered slightly at this. He looked up to see the resolute
gloom of the half-breed's eyes, and that sneering smile, fixed upon him
still. Then he turned once more to the bottle. . . . His heavy hand
moved slowly towards it. His stubby fingers perspired and showed sickly
in the light. . . . They closed about the bottle. Then suddenly he
raised it, and drained it at a draught. He sighed once heavily and as if
a great inward pain was over. Rising he took the letters silently pushed
towards him, and dropped them into the fire. He went to the window,
raised it, and threw the bottle into the river. The cork was left:
Pierre pointed to it. He took it up with a strange smile and thrust it
into the coals. Then he sat down by the table, leaning his arms upon it,
his eyes staring painfully before him, and the forgotten napkin still
about his neck. Soon the eyes closed, and, with a moan on his lips, his
head dropped forward on his arms. . . . Pierre rose, and, looking at
the figure soon to be breathless as the baked meats about it, said:
"'Bien,' he was not all coward. No."

Then he turned and went out into the night.