Back in Chicago, his marriage to the semi-invalid Bernice had seemed a good bargain, for she was wealthy, very generous, and had never attempted to pry too deeply into his outside affairs. But here, where he saw no one but her and a handful of stinking red-skins; where he heard nothing but that savage caterwauling and her incessant coughing—! He flung himself into the canoe and paddled furiously toward the mainland—and Hilda Johannson.
What a difference that Swedish farmer's daughter could make in his exile, if she would only cast aside her backwoods scruples! He railed inwardly at her now, for her frigid aloofness had long since fired him with a consuming infatuation. Nothing was right on this damn Michigan peninsula!
Floating across the slimy lake in ceaseless, maddening rhythm, the savage chant intruded itself upon his mind again and drove out thoughts of Hilda. He laid aside the paddle for a moment to stop his ears, so unbearable had the sound become. It had begun early this evening when the pale new moon cast its first reflection on the waters, and it would continue every night until this moon had waned. It had been Bernice's infantile delight in its crazy significance that precipitated his furious departure from the house. She had said:
"It's a ceremony the tribe holds every year at this time to appease the Spirits of the Lake—the Neebanawbaigs, they call them. This is a holy lake to the Indians, you know; and they say if anyone affronts it, or harms its friends, the Neebanawbaigs take terrible vengeance!" Here she had laughed self-consciously—as well she might!—before she went on:
"Two Horses—that's our old housekeeper's cousin, you know—spoke so convincingly of its terrors that I made it a peace offering this afternoon. I cast a bouquet of garden flowers on the waters, and said a prayer Two Horses taught me. Now, no one may harm me, for fear the Spirits of the Lake will punish them."
That last bit of addle-brained nonsense had marked the limit of Roger's endurance.
What civilized man wouldn't have blown up and flown out of the house in disgust after that? And, because Bernice's silliness had driven him away so early in the evening, he would arrive at his rendezvous with Hilda half an hour too soon. Roger Benton felt terribly abused.
Hilda, following the custom of her sex, did not appear until much later than the waiting man expected.
When she finally came in sight, she presented a striking contrast to the thin, dark, ailing woman he had left in anger. Tall, strong, blonde as her Viking forebears, she strode with lithe grace along the forest path.
Eyes that were too cold, and a thin lipped mouth too firmly set, marred the beauty of her face. But Roger Benton had never noted these imperfections. His long wait had sharpened his desire. Forgetting past rebuffs, he rushed to meet her and clasped her in his arms.
She coolly disengaged herself and sat down upon a fallen tree.
Irritably, he threw himself beside her. "Hilda, why do you hold me off like this?" he pouted. "You know I'm mad—insane about you."
Her thin lips curled in a faint smile. "You have no right to be mad about me—you're a married man."
"We're not children! You know how little I care about my wife! Besides, it's only a question of time before—" He paused.
"Before she will die, you mean," she finished simply.
He turned his head away. "Yes. She thinks she's getting better; but the doctors don't tell her what they tell me." His arms clasped her again, "And the moment I'm free, I'll marry you—I swear it! But I
