“You are an unusual man, M’sieur,” he said at last, as though he had been carefully measuring his words.  “We have known each other only a few days, and yet it seems a long time.  I had my suspicions of you back there.  I thought it was Josephine’s beauty you were after, and I have stood ready to kill you if I saw in you what I feared.  But you have won, M’sieur.  Josephine loves you.  I have faith in you.  And do you know why?  It is because you have fought the fight of a strong man.  It does not take great soul in a man to match knife against knife, or bullet against bullet.  Not to keep one’s word, to play a hopeless part in the dark, to leap when the numma wapew is over the eyes and you are blind—­that takes a man.  And now, when Jean Jacques Croisset says for the first time that there is a ray of hope for you, where a few hours ago no hope existed, will you give me again your promise to play the part you have been asked to play?”

“Hope!” Philip was at Jean’s side in an instant.  “Jean, what do you mean?  Is it that you, even you—­now give me hope of possessing Josephine?”

Slowly Jean rose from his chair.

“I am part Cree, M’sieur,” he said.  “And in our Cree there is a saying that the God of all things, Kisamunito, the Great Spirit, often sits on high and laughs at the tricks which he plays on men.  Perhaps this is one of those times.  I am beginning to believe so.  Kisamunito has begun to run our destinies, not ourselves.  Yesterday we—­our Josephine and I—­had our hopes, our plans, our schemes well laid.  To-night they no longer exist.  Before the night is much older all that Josephine has done, all that she has made you promise, will count for nothing.  After that—­a matter of hours, perhaps of days—­will come the great fight for you and me.  Until then you must know nothing, must see nothing, must ask nothing.  And when the crash comes—­”

“It will give Josephine to me?” cried Philip eagerly.

“I did not say that, M’sieur,” corrected Jean quietly.  “Out of fighting such as this strange things may happen.  And where things happen there is always hope.  Is that not true?”

He moved to the door and listened.  Quietly he opened it, and looked out.

“The hall is clear,” he whispered softly.  “Go to Josephine.  Tell her that she must arrange to see me within an hour.  And if you care for that bit of hope I have shown you, let it happen without the knowledge of the master of Adare.  From this hour Jean Jacques Croisset sacrifices his soul.  Make haste, M’sieur—­and use caution!”

Without a word Philip went quietly out into the hall.  Behind him Jean closed and locked the door.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN