s were spoken in a low monotone without emphasis or emotion, and
David was convinced they were a message from the Missioner, something
Father Roland wanted him to know without speaking the words himself. Not
again after that first night did he apologize for his visits to the
room, nor did he ever explain why the door was always locked, or why he
invariably locked it after him when he went in. Each night, when they
were at home, he disappeared into the room, opening the door only enough
to let his body pass through; sometimes he remained there for only a few
minutes, and occasionally for a long time. At least once a day, usually
in the evening, he played the violin. It was always the same piece that
he played. There was never a variation, and David could not make up his
mind that he had ever heard it before. At these times, if Mukoki
happened to be in the Chateau, as Father Roland called his place, he
would sit like one in a trance, scarcely breathing until the music had
ceased. And when the Missioner came from the room his face was always
lit up in a kind of halo. There was one exception to all this, David
noticed. The door was never unlocked when there was a visitor. No other
but himself and Mukoki heard the sound of the violin, and this fact, in
time, impressed David with the deep faith and affection of the Little
Missioner. One evening Father Roland came from the room with his face
aglow with some strange happiness that had come to him in there, and
placing his hands on David's shoulders he said, with a yearning and yet
hopeless inflection in his voice:

"I wish you would stay with me always, David. It has made me younger,
and happier, to have a son."

In David there was growing--but concealed from Father Roland's eyes for
a long time--a strange insistent restlessness. It ran in his blood, like
a thing alive, whenever he looked at the face of the Girl. He wanted to
go on.

And yet life at the Chateau, after the first two weeks, was anything but
dull and unexciting. They were in the heart of the great trapping
country. Forty miles to the north was a Hudson's Bay post where an
ordained minister of the Church of England had a mission. But Father
Roland belonged to the forest people alone. They were his "children,"
scattered in their shacks and tepees over ten thousand square miles of
country, with the Chateau as its centre. He was ceaselessly on the move
after that first fortnight, and David was always with him. The I