The light of understanding grew slowly on Bruce's face. The revelation made many things plain. The difference in the name accounted for his inability to trace her. It was easy enough now to account for Sprudell's violent opposition to their meeting.
"He told you that it was a premeditated murder?"
Watching him closely Helen saw that his tanned skin changed color.
She nodded.
"Why, I came East on purpose to find you!" he exclaimed. "To make amends--"
"Amends!" she interrupted, and the cold scorn in her voice made the perspiration start out on his forehead.
"Yes, amends," he reiterated. "I was to blame in a way, but not entirely. Don't be any harder on me than you can help; it's not any easy thing to talk about to--his sister."
She did not make it easier, but sat waiting in silence while he hesitated. He was wondering how he could tell her so she would understand, how not to shock her with the grewsome details of the story. Through the wide archway with its draperies of gold thread and royal purple velvet a procession of bare-shouldered, exquisitely dressed women was passing and Bruce became suddenly conscious of the music of the distant orchestra, of the faint odor of flowers and perfume, of everything about him that stood for culture and civilization. How at the antipodes was the picture he was seeing! For the moment it seemed as though that lonely, primitive life on the river must be only a memory of some previous existence. Then the unforgettable scene in the cabin came back vividly and he almost shuddered, for he felt again the warm gush over his hand and saw plainly the snarling madman striking, kicking, while he fought to save him. He had meant to tell her delicately and instead he blurted it out brutally.
"I made him mad and he went crazy. He came at me with the axe and I threw him over my shoulder. He fell on the blade and cut an artery. Slim bled to death on the floor of the cabin."
"Ugh--how horrible!" Bruce imagined she shrank from him. "But why did you quarrel--what started it?"
Bruce hesitated; it sounded so petty--so ridiculous. He thought of the two old partners he had known who had three bloody fights over the most desirable place to hang a haunch of venison. "Salt," he finally forced himself to answer.
"Sprudell told me that and I could not believe it."
She looked at him incredulously.
"We were down to a handful, and I fed it to a band of mountain-sheep that came to the cabin. I had no business to do it."