in the room, "I
shall remember your promise of a hunting trip with me. I am going up
to MacLeod's Settlement immediately. I trust to see you again very
soon."

"Mr. Drennen," answered the old man quietly, "I am honoured in your
friendship. You have done me a kindness beyond measure but not beyond
my appreciation."

They shook hands gravely, their eyes seeking to disguise the yearning
which stood in each soul. Then Drennen went out.

"There, sir," cried Sothern, and the clerk marvelled at the note in his
voice which sounded so like pride of ownership, "there goes a man from
whom the world shall hear one of these days. His feet are at last in
the right path."

The clerk, going to usher in Israel Weyeth, did not hear the last low
words:

"For which, thank God . . . and Ygerne Bellaire!"

CHAPTER XVII

THE PASSION OF ERNESTINE DUMONT

A man's life may pass for him like a slow winding stream through open
meadows in gentle valley lands, its waters clear and untroubled by
rapids, falls and eddies. Even a man with such a life has his vital
story. But it is pastoral, idyllic, like a quiet painting done in a
soft monochrome. Or a man's life may shake him with a series of shocks
which, to the soul, are cataclysmic. And then the man, be his strength
what it may, since he is human and it is not infinite, is caught like a
dry leaf in the maelstrom of life about him and within him, and is
sucked down into depths where the light does not penetrate or is flung
from the mad current into a quiet cove where he may rest with the din
of the angry waters in his ears.

Drennen had been over the falls; he now rested in such a cove. He had
battled furiously with fury itself; now he was soothingly touched by
the tide of gentler emotions. He did not think; rather he dreamed. He
had looked for the light the other day and had found it everywhere.
Now, most of all did it seem to be within himself. We see the outside
world as we carry it within us; the eyes, rather mirrors than
telescopes, reflect what is intimate rather than that which lies beyond.

To-day, riding back along the trail, Drennen saw how golden were the
fresh tips of the firs; how each young tree was crowned with a star;
how each budding pine lifted skyward what resembled a little cluster of
wax candles. Stars and candles, celestial light and light man-kindled,
glory of God and glory of man.

With a rebound, it seemed, the young soul of the David Drenn