g flash there came that mysterious change in him, a sudden dying
out of the enthusiasm in his eyes, and a grayness in his face that came
and went like a shadow of pain. In another moment he was saying:

"I'm not playing the part of the good Samaritan, David. I've got a
personal and a selfish reason for wanting you with me. It may be
possible--just possible, I say--that I need you even more than you will
need me." He held out his hand. "Let me have your checks and I'll go
ahead to the baggage car and arrange to have your dunnage thrown off
with mine at the Frenchman's."

David gave him the checks, and sat down after he had gone. He began to
realize that, for the first time in many months, he was taking a deep
and growing interest in matters outside his own life. The night and its
happenings had kindled a strange fire within him, and the warmth of this
fire ran through his veins and set his body and his brain tingling
curiously. New forces were beginning to fight his own malady. As he sat
alone after Father Roland had gone, his mind had dragged itself away
from the East; he thought of a woman, but it was the woman in the third
coach back. Her wonderful eyes haunted him--their questing despair, the
strange pain that seemed to burn like glowing coals in their depths. He
had seen not only misery and hopelessness in them; he had seen tragedy;
and they troubled him. He made up his mind to tell Father Roland about
her when he returned from the baggage car, and take him to her.

And who was Father Roland? For the first time he asked himself the
question. There was something of mystery about the Little Missioner that
he found as strange and unanswerable as the thing he had seen in the
eyes of the woman in the third car back. Father Roland had not been
asleep when he looked in and saw him hunched down in his corner near the
window, just as a little later he had seen the woman crumpled down in
hers. It was as if the same oppressing hand had been upon them in those
moments. And why had Father Roland asked him of all men to go with him
as a comrade into the North? Following this he asked himself the still
more puzzling question: Why had he accepted the invitation?

He stared out into the night, as if that night held an answer for him.
He had not noticed until now that the storm had ceased its beating
against the window. It was not so black outside. With his face close to
the glass he could make out the dark wall of the forest. From