He had left her free.

Life and hope and other happiness were ahead of her.

He had not destroyed her, and this thought would strengthen him and leave something of gladness in his heart, even in that gray dawn when the law would compel him to make his final sacrifice.
It is a strange peace which follows grief, a secret happiness no other soul but one can understand.

Out of it excitement and passion have been burned, and it is then the Great God of things comes more closely into the possession of his own.

And now, as they went westward and north toward the Wollaston Lake country, this peace possessed Jolly Roger.