He had already made the plans for their
escape and they were sufficiently hazardous. Their one chance was
to strike south across the thin arm of the Barren for Pierre
Breault's cabin. To go in the opposite direction--farther north
without dogs or sledge--would be deliberate suicide.
Several times during the afternoon he tried to bring himself to
the point of urging on her the naked truth--that her father was
dead. There was no doubt of that--not the slightest. But each time
he fell a little short. Her confidence in the belief that her
father was alive, and that he was where she had marked the cross
on the map, puzzled him. Was it conceivable, he asked himself,
that the Eskimos had some reason for NOT killing Paul Armin, and
that Celie was aware of the fact? If so he failed to discover it.
Again and again he made Celie understand that he wanted to know
why the Eskimos wanted HER, and each time she answered him with a
hopeless little gesture, signifying that she did not know. He did
learn that there were two other white men with Paul Armin.
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