"It isn't pleasant.
But the law says I must take you to barracks." In the sky Kent saw the stars clearly again, and his lungs were drinking in the cool air as in the wonderful moments before his encounter with Mercer.
He had lost.

And it was Mercer who had made him lose.

Carter felt the sudden tightening of his muscles as he walked with a hand on his arm.
And Kent shut his teeth close and made no answer to what Carter had said, except that Carter heard something which he thought was a sob choked to death in the other's throat.
Carter, too, was a man bred of the red blood of the North, and he knew what was in Kent's heart.

For only by the breadth of a hair had Kent failed in his flight.
Pelly was on duty at barracks, and it was Pelly who locked him in one of the three cells behind the detachment office.

When he was gone, Kent sat down on the edge of his prison cot and for the first time let the agony of his despair escape in a gasping breath from between his lips.
Half an hour ago the world had reached out its arms to him, and he had gone forth to its welcome, only to have the grimmest tragedy of all his life descend upon him like the sword of Damocles.