Lisle said nothing; he could understand and sympathize with what was going on in his companion's mind and the latter was filled with bitterness and humiliation. A man of his own kind and station in life, one with whom he fished and shot, had broken faith with his starving comrade and with incredible cowardice had left him to perish. Even this was not the worst; though Nasmyth had always taken the personal courage of his friends for granted. He was not a clever man and he had his faults, but he shaped his life in accordance with a few simple but inflexible rules. It was difficult for him to understand how one could yield to a fit of craven fear; but there was a fact which made Gladwyne's transgression still blacker. "This thing hits hard," he said at length. "The man should have gone back, if he had known it meant certain death." Lisle filled his pipe and smoked in silence for several minutes during which the eery cry of a loon rang about the camp. It roused Nasmyth to an outbreak of anger. "I hate that unearthly noise!" he exclaimed vehemently. "The thing seems to be gloating; it's indecent! When I think of that call it will bring back the long portage and this ghostly river! I wish I'd never made the journey, or that I could blot the whole thing out!" "It can't be done," Lisle replied. "It's too late. You have learned the truth of what has been done here--but the results will work themselves out. Neither you nor I can stop them; they have to be faced." "The pity of it is that the innocent must suffer; they've borne enough already." "There's a point I don't quite understand," declared Lisle. "Whatever the Hudson Bay agent thought, he'd have kept it to himself if he'd been allowed--I've met him. It was Gladwyne who laid the whole blame on Vernon; he forced the agent to bear him out. Why should he have taken so much trouble? His own tale would have cleared him." Nasmyth looked irresolute; and then he answered reluctantly: "There's a fact I haven't told you yet--Clarence came into the family property on George's death; a fine old place, a fairly large estate. The sister doesn't count, though she got her brother's personal property--the land goes down in the male line." Lisle dropped his pipe. "Now I understand! Gladwyne profits, my dead partner bore the shame. But do you believe the man meant to let his cousin die?" "No," Nasmyth answered sharply, "that's unthinkable! But I blame him almost as much as if he had done so. Besides his duty to George, he had a duty to himself and to the family--the honorable men and women who had kept the name clean before him. Knowing he would inherit on George's death, there was only one way open--he should have gone back, at any cost. Instead, to clear himself of the faintest trace of ugly suspicion, he lays the blame upon an innocent man." Lisle did not reply to this. He felt that had the grim choice been imposed upon his companion, the man would have taken the course he had indicated.