f the house, and on, and on,
and on--and she had never come back. That was weeks ago, and there had
been no word nor sign of her since. The man was now busy with it all, in
a slow, cumbrous way. A nature more to be touched by things seen than by
things told, his mind was being awakened in a massive kind of fashion.
He was viewing this crisis of his life as one sees a human face in the
wide searching light of a great fire. He was restless, but he held
himself still by a strong effort, not wishing to disturb the little
sleeper. His eyes seemed to retreat farther and farther back under his
shaggy brows.

The great logs in the chimney burned brilliantly, and a brass crucifix
over the child's head now and again reflected soft little flashes of
light. This caught the hunter's eye. Presently there grew up in him a
vague kind of hope that, somehow, this symbol would bring him luck--that
was the way he put it to himself. He had felt this--and something
more--when Dominique prayed. Somehow, Dominique's prayer was the only
one he had ever heard that had gone home to him, had opened up the big
sluices of his nature, and let the light of God flood in. No, there was
another: the one Lucette made on the day that they were married, when a
wonderful timid reverence played through his hungry love for her.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

IV

Hours passed. All at once, without any other motion or gesture, the
boy's eyes opened wide with a strange, intense look.

"Father," he said slowly, and in a kind of dream, "when you hear a sweet
horn blow at night, is it the Scarlet Hunter calling?"

"P'r'aps. Why, Dominique?" He made up his mind to humor the boy, though
it gave him strange aching forebodings. He had seen grown men and women
with these fancies--and they had died.

"I heard one blowing just now, and the sounds seemed to wave over my
head. P'r'aps he's calling some one that's lost."

"Mebbe."

"And I heard a voice singing--it wasn't a bird to-night."

"There was no voice, Dominique."

"Yes, yes." There was something fine in the grave, courteous certainty
of the lad. "I waked, and you were sitting there thinking, and I shut my
eyes again, and I heard the voice. I remember the tune and the words."

"What were the words?" In spite of himself the hunter felt awed.

"I've heard mother sing them, or something most like them:

"'Why does the fire no longer burn?
(I am so lonely.)
Why does the tent-door sw