nearly killed a man. They've been after
him ever since, and almost had him when we found him, injured by a blow
which he received in an ugly fall earlier in the night. It's the last
and total wrecking of my theory."

"But the girl--" urged Philip.

"We're going to see her now, and she will tell you the whole story as
she told it to me," said the doctor, as calmly as before. "Ah, but it's
wonderful, man--this great, big, human love that fills the world! They
two met at Nelson House, as I had planned they should, and four months
after that they smashed my theory by being married by a missionary from
York Factory. I mean that they smashed the bad part of it, Phil, but all
three couples proved the other--that there exist no such things as 'soul
affinities,' and that two normal people of opposite sexes, if thrown
together under certain environment, will as naturally mate as two birds,
and will fight and die for one another afterward, too. There may not be
one in ten thousand who believes it, but I do--still. At the last moment
the man in Falkner triumphed over his love and he told her what he was,
that up until the moment he met her he drank and gambled, and that for
his shooting a man in Prince Albert he would sooner or later get a term
in prison. And she? I tell you that she busted my theory to a frazzle!
She loved him, as I now believe every woman in the world is capable of
loving, and she married him, and stuck to him through thick and thin,
fled with him when he was compelled to run--and her faith in him now
is like that of a child in its God. For a time they lived in that cabin
above Pierre Thoreau's, and perhaps they wouldn't have been found out
if they hadn't come up to Fort Smith for a holiday. Falkner told me that
his pursuers would surely stop at Pierre's, and his wife. By this time
he has a good start for the States, and will be there by the time I get
his wife down."

Philip had not spoken a word. Almost mechanically he pulled the
photograph from his pocket.

"And this--" he said.

The doctor laughed as he took the picture from his hand.

"Is Mrs. William Falkner, Phil. Come in. I'm anxious to have you meet
her."

Chapter XV. Philip's Last Assignment

Philip, instead of following the doctor, laid a detaining hand upon his
arm.

"Wait!" he said.

Something in the seriousness of his manner drew a quick look of
apprehension over the other's face.

"I want to talk with you," continued Philip. "Let