ed of
reincarnation, taking courage to face the failure of the life they now
lived. Not by logic or the teaching of any school had they reached
this revelation, but through an inner sense. They were not hopeful
and wondering and timid; they were only sure. Their philosophy, their
religion, whether heathen or human, was inborn. They had comfort in it
and in each other.

After that day Gabriel Druse always set a light in his window which
burned all night, answering to the lantern-light at the door of
Tekewani's home--the lights of exile and of an alliance which had behind
it the secret influences of past ages and vanished peoples.

There came a night, however, when the light at the door of Tekewani's
tepee did not burn. At sunset it was lighted, but long before midnight
it was extinguished. Looking out from the doorway of his home (it was
the night after the Orange funeral), Gabriel Druse, returned from his
new duties at Lebanon, saw no light in the Indian reservation. With
anxiety, he set forth in the shine of the moon to visit it.

Arrived at the chief's tepee, he saw that the lantern of honour was
gone, and waking Tekewani, he brought him out to see. When the old
Indian knew his loss, he gave a harsh cry and stooped, and, gathering
a handful of dust from the ground, sprinkled it on his head. Then with
arms outstretched he cursed the thief who had robbed him of what had
been to him like a never-fading mirage, an illusion blinding his eyes to
the bitter facts of his condition.

To his mind all the troubles come to Lebanon and Manitou had had one
source; and now the malign spirit had stretched its hand to spoil those
already dispossessed of all but the right to live. One name was upon the
lips of both men, as they stood in the moonlight by Tekewani's tepee.

"There shall be an end of this," growled the Romany.

"I will have my own," said Tekewani, with malediction on the thief who
had so shamed him.

Black anger was in the heart of Gabriel Druse as he turned again towards
his own home, and he was glad of what he had done to Felix Marchand at
the Orange funeral.

CHAPTER XIX. THE KEEPER OF THE BRIDGE

"Like the darkness of the grave, which is darkness itself--"

Most of those who break out of the zareba of life, who lay violent hands
upon themselves, do so with a complete reasoning, which in itself is
proof of their insanity. It may be domestic tragedy, or ill-health,
or crime, or broken faith, or sham