es furtively
watched the other's face.

"But home's where man and wife are."

The priest now looked him straight in the eyes. "Then, as you say, she
will not marry M'sieu' Varley--_hein_?"

The humor died out of Finden's face. His eyes met the priest's eyes
steadily. "Did I say that? Then my tongue wasn't making a fool of me,
after all. How did you guess I knew--everything, father?"

"A priest knows many t'ings--so."

There was a moment of gloom, then the Irishman brightened. He came
straight to the heart of the mystery around which they had been
manoeuvring. "Have you seen her husband--Meydon--this year? It isn't his
usual time to come yet."

Father Bourassa's eyes drew those of his friend into the light of a new
understanding and revelation. They understood and trusted each other.

[Illustration: "AS PURTY A WOMAN, TOO--AS PURTY AND AS STRAIGHT BEWHILES"]

"_Helas!_ He is there in the hospital," he answered, and nodded toward a
building not far away, which had been part of an old Hudson Bay Company's
fort. It had been hastily adapted as a hospital for the smallpox victims.

"Oh, it's Meydon, is it, that bad case I heard of to-day?"

The priest nodded again and pointed. "_Voila_, Madame Meydon, she is
coming. She has seen him--her hoosban'."

Finden's eyes followed the gesture. The little widow of Jansen was coming
from the hospital, walking slowly toward the river.

"As purty a woman, too--as purty and as straight bewhiles. What is the
matter with him--with Meydon?" Finden asked, after a moment.

"An accident in the woods--so. He arrive, it is las' night, from Great
Slave Lake."

Finden sighed. "Ten years ago he was a man to look at twice--before he did
_It_ and got away. Now his own mother wouldn't know him--bad 'cess to him!
I knew him from the cradle almost. I spotted him here by a knife-cut I
gave him in the hand when we were lads together. A divil of a timper
always both of us had, but the good-nature was with me, and I didn't drink
and gamble and carry a pistol. It's ten years since he did the killing,
down in Quebec, and I don't suppose the police will get him now. He's been
counted dead. I recognized him here the night after I asked her how she
liked the name of Finden. She doesn't know that I ever knew him. And he
didn't recognize me--twenty-five years since we met before! It would be
better if he went under the sod. Is he pretty sick, father?"

"He will die unless the surgeon's knife it cure