Husband? I glanced from him to Jill. And then I understood — all the things that had puzzled me were suddenly clear.
He had closed his eyes and for a moment I thought he had gone. But his grip on Jill's hand was tight and suddenly he looked up at me. His glance moved from me to Jill. Without a word he put her hand in mine. Then he said, 'Bill — you must take over where I left off. The thorite deposits-' He gritted his teeth and raised himself. Jill supported his back. His eyes were narrowed against the light as he gazed out across the valley. 'The Blaaisen,' he murmured.
I turned and followed the direction of his gaze. He was looking across to the Jokulen, to the flank of the mountain where the glacier ice shone a brilliant blue. When I looked back at him he had relaxed and closed his eyes. Jill bent and kissed his lips. He tried to say something, but he hadn't the strength. A moment later his head lolled over and the thin blood trickle of a haemorrhage started from his open mouth.
Jill laid him back in the snow as a shadow fell across us. I looked up. Jorgensen was standing over us. I became conscious of many voices from the direction of the snowshed. The half coach was still protruding from the tunnel and in the cutting police and officials mingled with a mob of excited passengers.
I glanced at Jill. She was dry-eyed and staring at nothing. 'Dead?' Jorgensen asked.
I nodded.
'But he told you before he died?'
'Yes,' I said.
I stood up, conscious again of the aching of my limbs, and I turned and stared across the valley to the Jokulen. At my feet lay the remains of George Farnell. But out there, under the Blue Ice, lay all that he had lived and worked for, all that was best in him. That was the sum total of his life. Nothing visible — nothing that has not been visible since the Ice Age first elected to make the ice on the flank of the Jokulen blue. But an idea — something bom of a lifetime's study and work, backed by the solid presence of mineral wealth under the rock and ice. And I swore then and there that I'd stay up here at Finse and build an industrial monument to George Farnell, who died there in the snow — ex-convict, swindler, forger, deserter, murderer — but for all that a great man who subordinated everything to one idea.
And now, here it is, half completed. When I began this story the days were shortening and Finse was in the grip of ice. It is still in the grip of ice. But now the days are drawing out. Spring is coming. All through the long winter months Jill and I have been living up here and the work has gone steadily forward. We have done all the exploratory work. We have proved that George Farnell did not die for nothing. Soon now we shall mine the first ore. Soon these sprawling, wooden buildings will be humming with activity. Finse will be a small town, centre of the life blood of one of the world's greatest industrial plants. Open the window now and look out across the snow. I can see from here the spot where Farnell died. And away to the right, its icy jaws seeming to grin back at me, is the Blue Ice and all he lived for.