He smothered her with his foul kisses, ravished her lips, her eyes, the soft hot cheeks, the oval of the chin, and the lovely curve of the throat.  She was physically nauseated when he flung her from him against the wall and strode from the room with another horrible whoop of exultation.

She clung to the wall, panting, eyes closed.  A shocking sense of degradation flooded her soul.  She felt as though she were drowning in it, fathoms deep.  Her lids fluttered open and she saw the gambler.  He was still sitting on the stool.  A mocking, cynical smile was in the eyes that met Jessie’s.

“And Tom Morse—­where, oh, where is he?” the man jeered.

A chill shook her.  Dry sobs welled up in her throat.  She was lost.  For the first time she knew the cold clutch of despair at her heart.  Whaley did not intend to lift a hand for her.  He had sat there and let West work his will.

“Angus McRae gave me instructions aplenty,” he explained maliciously.  “I was to keep my hands off you.  I was to mind my own business.  When you see him again—­if you ever do—­will you tell him I did exactly as he said?”

She did not answer.  What was there to say?  In the cabin was no sound except that of her dry, sobbing breath.

Whaley rose and came across the room.  He had thrown aside the gambler’s mask of impassivity.  His eyes were shining strangely.

“I’m going—­now—­out into the storm.  What about you?  If you’re here when West comes back, you know what it means.  Make your choice.  Will you go with me or stay with him?”

“You’re going home?”

“Yes.”  His smile was enigmatic.  It carried neither warmth nor conviction.

The man had played his cards well.  He had let West give her a foretaste of the hell in store for her.  Anything rather than that, she thought.  And surely Whaley would take her home.  He was no outlaw, but a responsible citizen who must go back to Faraway to live.  He had to face her father and Winthrop Beresford of the Mounted—­and Tom Morse.  He would not harm her.  He dared not.

But she took one vain precaution.  “You promise to take me to my father.  You’ll not—­be like him.”  A lift of the head indicated the man who had just gone out.

“He’s a fool.  I’m not.  That’s the difference.”  He shrugged his shoulders.  “Make your own choice.  If you’d rather stay here—­”

But she had made it.  She was getting hurriedly into her furs and was putting on her mittens.  Already she had adjusted the snowshoes.

“We’d better hurry,” she urged.  “He might come back.”

“It’ll be bad luck for him if he does,” the gambler said coolly.  “You ready?”

She nodded that she was.

In another moment they were out of the warm room and into the storm.  The wind was coming in whistling gusts, carrying with it a fine sleet that whipped the face and stung the eyeballs.  Before she had been out in the storm five minutes, Jessie had lost all sense of direction.