ched
in to him. It was then that he noticed the mosquito-proof screening
nailed outside the bars. It was rather odd, this thinking of his
comfort even as they planned to kill him!

If there was truth to this new suspicion that Black Roger and his
mistress were plotting both vengeance and murder, their plans must also
involve Marie-Anne. Suddenly his mind shot back to the raft. Had Black
Roger turned a clever coup by leaving his wife there, while he came on
ahead of the bateau with Carmin Fanchet? It would be several weeks
before the raft reached the Yellowknife, and in that time many things
might happen. The thought worried him. He was not afraid for himself.
Danger, the combating of physical forces, was his business. His fear
was for Marie-Anne. He had seen enough to know that Black Roger was
hopelessly infatuated with Carmin Fanchet. And several things might
happen aboard the raft, planned by agents as black-souled as himself.
If they killed Marie-Anne--

His hand gripped the knob of the door, and for a moment he was filled
with the impulse to shout for Black Roger and face him with what was in
his mind. And as he stood there, every muscle in his body ready to
fight, there came to him faintly the sound of music. He heard the piano
first, and then a woman's voice singing. Soon a man's voice joined the
woman's, and he knew it was Black Roger, singing with Carmin Fanchet.

Suddenly the mad impulse in his heart went out, and he leaned his head
nearer to the crack of the door, and strained his ears to hear. He
could make out no word of the song, yet the singing came to him with a
thrill that set his lips apart and brought a staring wonder into his
eyes. In the room below him, fifteen hundred miles from civilization,
Black Roger and Carmin Fanchet were singing "Home, Sweet Home!"

An hour later David looked through one of the barred windows upon a
world lighted by a splendid moon. He could see the dark edge of the
distant forest that rimmed in the chateau, and about him seemed to be a
level meadow, with here and there the shadow of a building in which the
lights were out. Stars were thick in the sky, and a strange quietness
hovered over the world he looked upon. From below him floated up now
and then a perfume of tobacco smoke. The guard under his window was
awake, but he made no sound.

A little later he undressed, put out the two lights in his room, and
stretched himself between the cool, white sheets on the couch. A