“Yes, just that.  He knows what it means up here for such a thing to happen.  His love for her is not love.  It is the passion that fills hell with its worst.  He laid his plans before he came.  That letter, the paper I read, M’sieur!  He meant to see Josephine at once, and show it to her.  There are two of those papers:  one at Thoreau’s place and one in Thoreau’s pocket.  If anything happens to Lang, one of them is to be delivered to the master of Adare by Thoreau.  If I had killed him it would have gone to Le M’sieur.  It is his safeguard.  And there are two copies—­to make the thing sure.  So we cannot kill him.

“Josephine listened to all this to-night, from Lang’s own lips.  And she pleaded with him, M’sieur.  She called upon him to think of the little child, letting him believe that it was still alive; and he laughed at her.  And then, almost as I was ready to plunge my knife into his heart, she threw up her head like an angel and told him to do his worst—­that she refused to pay the price.  I never saw her stronger than in that moment, M’sieur—­in that moment when there was no hope!  I would have killed him then for the paper he had, but the other is at Thoreau’s.  He has gone back there.  He says that unless he receives word of Josephine’s surrender within a week—­the crash will come, the paper will be given to the master of Adare.  And now, M’sieur Philip, what do you have to say?”

“That there never was a game lost until it was played to the end,” replied Philip, and he drew nearer to look straight and steadily into the half-breed’s eyes.  “Go on, Jean.  There is something more which you have not told me.  And that is the biggest thing of all.  Go on!”

For a space there was a startled look in Jean’s eyes.  Then he shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

“Of course there is more,” he said.  “You have known that, M’sieur.  There is one thing which you will never know—­that which Josephine said you would not guess if you lived a thousand years.  You must forget that there is more than I have told you, for it will do you no good to remember.”

Expectancy died out of Philip’s eyes.

“And yet I believe that what you are holding back from me is the key to everything.”

“I have told you enough, M’sieur—­enough to make you see why we must fight.”

“But not how.”

“That will come soon,” replied Jean, a little troubled.

The men were silent.  Behind them they heard the restless movement of the dogs.  Out of the gloom came a wailing whine.  Again Philip looked at Jean.

“Do you know, your story seems weak in places, Jean,” he said.  “I believe every word you have said.  And yet, when you come to think of it all, the situation doesn’t seem to be so terribly alarming to me after all.  Why, for instance, do you fear those letters—­ this scoundrel Lang’s confession?  Kill him.  Let the letter come to Adare.  Cannot Josephine swear that she is innocent?  Can she not have a story of her own showing how foully Lang tried to blackmail her into a crime?  Would not Adare believe her word before that of a freebooter?  And am I not here to swear—­that the child—­was mine?”