Why had she come to _his_ cabin aboard the _Nome_?
Why had she played him with such conspicuous intent against Rossland, and why--in the end--had she preceded him to his home in the tundras?
It was this question which persisted, never for an instant swept aside by the others.

She had not come because of love for him.

In a brutal sort of way he had proved that, for when he had taken her in his arms, he had seen distress and fear and a flash of horror in her face.

Another and more mysterious force had driven her.
The joy in him was a living flame even as this realization pressed upon him.

He was like a man who had found life after a period of something that was worse than death, and with his happiness he felt himself twisted upon an upheaval of conflicting sensations and half convictions out of which, in spite of his effort to hold it back, suspicion began to creep like a shadow.