Gilbert Parker

“ Had she and her mother gone to Winnipeg to be near Laforce, to comfort him? Was Laforce free now, and was she unwilling? It was so strange that she should thus have carried on her childhood into her womanhood. But he guessed her—she had imagination.
"His mother died in my arms in Winnipeg," she said abruptly at last. "I'm glad I was some comfort to her. You see, it all came through me—I was so young and spoiled and silly—John Marcey's death, her death, and his long years in prison. Even then I knew better than to set the one against the other. Must a child not be responsible? ”

“ Then, do not forget that Marcey took his life in his hands himself, that he would have killed Laforce if Laforce hadn't killed him."
"I know, I know," she said, "but I should have felt the same if John Marcey had killed Stroke Laforce."
"It is a pity to throw your life away," he ventured. He said this for a purpose. He did not think she was throwing it away.
She was watching a little knot of horsemen coming over a swell of the prairie far off. She withdrew her eyes and fixed them on Pierre. "Do you throw your life away if you do what is the only thing you are told to do?" ”

“ He once stole the quarters from a dead man's eyes. Mon Dieu! to save Brickney's life, the courage to do that—like sticking your face in the mire and eating!—But, pshaw!—go on, p'tite Lucille."
"There is no more. I never heard again."
"How long was that ago?"
"Nine months or more."
"Nothing has been heard of any of them?"
"Nothing at all. The Englishman belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, but they have heard nothing down here at Fort Ste. Anne."
"If he saves the Company's man, that will make up the man he lost for them, eh—you think that, eh?" Pierre's eyes had a curious ironical light. ”

“ He stood looking at the house from the shade of the solitary pine-tree near it, recalling every incident of that fatal night. He had the gift of looking at a thing in its true proportions, perhaps because he had little emotion and a strong brain, or perhaps because early in life his emotions were rationalised. ”

“ If he comes," he added "if he comes back, think of him as well as Marcey. Marcey is sleeping—what does it matter? If he is awake, he has better times, for he was a man to make another world sociable. Think of Laforce, for he has his life to live, and he is a man to make this world sociable.
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"'The Scarlet Hunter is sick for home—
⁠ (Why should the door be shut?) '"
Her eyes had been following the group of horsemen on the plains. ”