tance, so meditative was
his voice: "Who will be the woman, Medallion?"

"I've got one in my eye--the very right one for our Avocat; not here,
not out of Pontiac, but from St. Jean in the hills--fulfilling your
verses, gentle apothecary. She must bring what is fresh--he must feel
that the hills have come to him, she that the valley is hers for the
first time. A new world for them both. Ha!"

"Regardez Ca! you are a great man," said the Little Chemist.

There was a strange, inscrutable look in the kind priest's eyes. The
Avocat had confessed to him in his time.

Medallion took up his hat.

"Where are you going?" said the Little Chemist. "To our Avocat, and then
to St. Jean."

He opened the door and vanished. The two that were left shook their
heads and wondered.

Chuckling softly to himself, Medallion strode away through the lane of
white-board houses and the smoke of strong tabac from these houses,
now and then pulling suddenly up to avoid stumbling over a child, where
children are numbered by the dozen to every house. He came at last to a
house unlike the others, in that it was of stone and larger. He leaned
for a moment over the gate, and looked through a window into a room
where the Avocat sat propped up with cushions in a great chair, staring
gloomily at two candles burning on the table before him. Medallion
watched him for a long time. The Avocat never changed his position; he
only stared at the candle, and once or twice his lips moved. A woman
came in and put a steaming bowl before him, and laid a pipe and matches
beside the bowl. She was a very little, thin old woman, quick and quiet
and watchful--his housekeeper. The Avocat took no notice of her. She
looked at him several times anxiously, and passed backwards and forwards
behind him as a hen moves upon the flank of her brood. All at once she
stopped. Her small, white fingers, with their large rheumatic knuckles,
lay flat on her lips as she stood for an instant musing; then she
trotted lightly to a bureau, got pen and paper and ink, reached down a
bunch of keys from the mantel, and came and put them all beside the bowl
and the pipe. Still the Avocat did not stir, or show that he recognised
her. She went to the door, turned, and looked back, her fingers again
at her lips, then slowly sidled out of the room. It was long before
the Avocat moved. His eyes had not wavered from the space between the
candles. At last, however, he glanced down. His eye caught the