ng his arm, her partly upturned
face a bewitching profile in the shadows.

Her voice grew lower, almost a whisper in its melody, as if meant for
him alone. Many times he had heard the Canadian Boat Song, but never as
its words came now from the lips of Marie-Anne Boulain.

"Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune, and our oars keep time.
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn;
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past."

She paused. And David, staring down at her shining head, did not speak.
Her fingers trembled over the keys, he could see dimly the shadow of
her long lashes, and the spirit-like scent of crushed violets rose to
him from the soft lace about her throat and her hair.

"It is your music," he whispered. "I have never heard the Boat Song
like that!"

He tried to drag his eyes from her face and hair, sensing that he was a
near-criminal, fighting a mighty impulse. The notes under her fingers
changed, and again--by chance or design--she was stabbing at him;
bringing him face to face with the weakness of his flesh, the iniquity
of his desire to reach out his arms and crumple her in them. Yet she
did not look up, she did not see him, as she began to sing "Ave Maria."

"Ave, Maria, hear my cry!
O, guide my path where no harm, no harm is nigh--"

As she went on, he knew she had forgotten to think of him. With the
reverence of a prayer the holy words came from her lips, slowly,
softly, trembling with a pathos and sweetness that told David they came
not alone from the lips, but from the very soul of St. Pierre's wife.
And then--

"Oh, Mother, hear me where thou art,
And guard and guide my aching heart, my aching heart!"

The last words drifted away into a whisper, and David was glad that he
was not looking into the face of St. Pierre's wife, for there must have
been something there now which it would have been sacrilege for him to
stare at, as he was staring at her hair.

No sound of opening door had come from behind them. Yet St. Pierre had
opened it and stood there, watching them with a curious humor in eyes
that seemed still to hold a glitter of the fire that had leaped from
the half-breed's flaming birch logs. His voice was a shock to Carrigan.

"PESTE, but you are a gloomy pair!" he boomed. "Why no light over there
in the corner, and why sing that death-song to chase away the dev