hat he don't like. But what made you come away from the boys in the
woods and travel down this way?"

A shade passed over the face of Jacques. He turned away from the lamp
and bent over the violin on his knees, fingering the strings nervously.
Then he spoke, in a changed, shaken voice.

"Ah'l tole you somet'ing, Ma'amselle Serene. You ma frien'. Don' you
h'ask me dat reason of it no more. Dat's somet'ing vair' bad, bad, bad.
Ah can't nevair tole dat--nevair."

There was something in the way he said it that gave a check to her
gentle curiosity and turned it into pity. A man with a secret in his
life? It was a new element in her experience; like a chapter in a book.
She was lady enough at heart to respect his silence. She kept away from
the forbidden ground. But the knowledge that it was there gave a new
interest to Jacques and his music. She embroidered some strange romances
around that secret while she sat in the kitchen sewing.

Other people at Bytown were less forbearing. They tried their best
to find out something about Fiddlin' Jack's past, but he was not
communicative. He talked about Canada. All Canadians do. But about
himself? No.

If the questions became too pressing, he would try to play himself away
from his inquisitors with new tunes. If that did not succeed, he would
take the violin under his arm and slip quickly out of the room. And if
you had followed him at such a time, you would have heard him drawing
strange, melancholy music from the instrument, sitting alone in the
barn, or in the darkness of his own room in the garret.

Once, and only once, he seemed to come near betraying himself. This was
how it happened.

There was a party at Moody's one night, and Bull Corey had come down
from the Upper Lake and filled himself up with whiskey.

Bull was an ugly-tempered fellow. The more he drank, up to a certain
point, the steadier he got on his legs, and the more necessary it seemed
for him to fight somebody. The tide of his pugnacity that night took a
straight set toward Fiddlin' Jack.

Bull began with musical criticisms. The fiddling did not suit him at
all. It was too quick, or else it was too slow. He failed to perceive
how any one could tolerate such music even in the infernal regions, and
he expressed himself in plain words to that effect. In fact, he damned
the performance without even the faintest praise.

But the majority of the audience gave him no support. On the contrary,
they told him to