making more wan the features of a dying man, whose
fever-wasted form lay on some lynx skins on the floor.

Cragstone was reading from the Book of Common Prayer the exquisite
service of the Visitation of the Sick. Outside, the loons clanged
up the waterways, the herons called across the islands, but no
human things ventured up the wilds. Inside, the sick man lay,
beside him August Beaver holding a rude lantern, while Cragstone's
matchless voice repeated the Anglican formula. A spasm, an uplifted
hand, and Cragstone paused. Was the end coming even before a
benediction? But the dying man was addressing Beaver in Chippewa,
whispering and choking out the words in his death struggle.

"He says he's bad man," spoke Beaver. A horrible, humorous
sensation swept over Cragstone; he hated himself for it, but at
college he had always ridiculed death-bed confessions; but in a
second that feeling had vanished, he bent his handsome, fair face
above the copper-colored countenance of the dying man. "Joe," he
said, with that ineffable tenderness that had always drawn human
hearts to him; "Joe, tell me before I pronounce the Absolution,
how you have been 'bad'?"

"I steal three times," came the answer. "Oncet horses, two of them
from farmer near Barrie. Oncet twenty fox-skins at North Bay;
station man he in jail for those fox-skins now. Oncet gold watch
from doctor at Penetanguishene."

The prayer-book rattled from Cragstone's hands and fell to the
floor.

"Tell me about this watch," he mumbled. "How did you come to
do it?"

"I liffe at the doctor's; I take care his horse, long time; old
River's girl, Lydia, she work there too; they say she steal it;
I sell to trader, the doctor he nefer know, he think Lydia."

Cragstone was white to the lips. "Joe," he faltered, "you are
dying; do you regret this sin, are you sorry?"

An indistinct "yes" was all; death was claiming him rapidly.

But a great, white, purified love had swept over the young
clergyman. The girl he worshipped could never now be a reproach to
his calling, she was proved blameless as a baby, and out of his
great human love arose the divine calling, the Christ-like sense
of forgiveness, the God-like forgetfulness of injury and suffering
done to his and to him, and once more his soft, rich voice broke
the stillness of the Northern night, as the Anglican absolution of
the dying fell from his lips in merciful tenderness:

"O Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to Hi