She stopped again, fighting against her passion. The pride of Mary held her stiff and straight, though her voice shook. "Has he sent you after me with mockery?" "No, he's given up the hope of you." "The hope?" "Don't you see? Are you going to make me crawl to explain? It always seemed to me that God meant Pierre for me. It always seemed to me that a girl like me was what he needed. But Pierre had never seen it. Maybe, if my hair was yellow an' my eyes blue, he might have felt different; but the way it is, he's always treated me like a kid brother--" "And lived with you?" said the other sternly. "Like two men! D'you understand how a woman could be the bunky of a man an' yet be no more to him than--than a man would be. You don't? Neither do I, but that's what I've been to Pierre le Rouge. What's that?" She lifted her head and stood poised as if for flight. Once more the vague sound blew up to them upon the wind. Mary ran to her and grasped both of her hands in her own. "If it's true--" But Jack snatched her hands away and looked on the other with a mighty hatred and a mightier contempt. "True? Why, it damn near finished Pierre with me to think he'd take up with--a thing like you. But it's true. If somebody else had told me I'd of laughed at 'em. But it's true. Tell me: what'll you do with him?" "Take him back--if I can reach him--take him back to the East." "Yes--maybe he'd be happy there. But when the spring comes to the city, Mary, wait till the wind blows in the night and the rain comes tappin' on the roof. Then hold him if you can. D'ye hear? Hold him if you can!" "If he cares it will not be hard. Tell me again, if--" "Shut up. What's that again?" The sound was closer now and unmistakably something other than the moan of the wind. Jacqueline turned in great excitement to Mary: "Did McGurk hear that sound down the gorge?" "Yes. I think so. And then he--" "My God!" "What is it?" "Pierre, and he's calling for--d'you hear?" Clear and loud, though from a great distance, the wind carried up the sound and the echo preserved it: "McGurk!" "McGurk!" repeated Mary. "Yes! And you brought him up here with you, and brought his death to Pierre. What'll you do to save him now? Pierre!" She turned and fled out among the trees, and after her ran Mary, calling, like the other: "Pierre!" CHAPTER 37 After that call first reached him, clear to his ears though vague as a murmur at the ear of Mary, McGurk swung to the saddle of his white horse, and galloped down the gorge like a veritable angel of death. The end was very near, he felt, yet the chances were at least ten to one that he would miss Pierre in the throat of the gorge, for among the great boulders, tall as houses, which littered it, a thousand men might have passed and repassed and never seen each other. Only the calling of Pierre could guide him surely.