rong of the First Men of the North. Out
into the night Philip followed him, bare-headed, with the moonlight
streaming down from above; and he stopped only when Jean stopped, close
to a little plot where a dozen wooden crosses rose above a dozen
snow-covered mounds.

Jean stopped, and his hand fell on Philip's arm.

"These are Josephine's," he said softly, with a sweep of his other
hand. "She calls it her Garden of Little Flowers. They are children,
M'sieur. Some are babies. When a little one dies--if it is not too far
away--she brings it to Le Jardin--her garden, so that it may not sleep
alone under the lonely spruce, with the wolves howling over it on
winter nights. They must be lonely in the woodsy graves, she says. I
have known her to bring an Indian baby a hundred miles, and some of
these I have seen die in her arms, while she crooned to them a song of
Heaven. And five times as many little ones she has saved, M'sieur. That
is why even the winds in the treetops whisper her name, L'Ange! Does it
not seem to you that even the moon shines brighter here upon these
little mounds and the crosses?"

"Yes," breathed Philip reverently.

Jean pointed to a larger mound, the one guardian mound of them all,
rising a little above the others, its cross lifted watchfully above the
other crosses; and he said, as if the spirits themselves were listening
to him:

"M'sieur, there is my wife, my Iowaka. She died three years ago, but
she is with me always, and even now her beloved voice is singing in my
heart, telling me that it is not black and cold where she and the
little ones are waiting, but that all is light and beautiful.
M'sieur"--his voice dropped to a whisper--"Could I sell my hereafter
with her for the price of another woman's love on earth?"

Philip tried to speak; and strange after a moment he succeeded in
saying:

"Jean, an hour ago, I thought I was a man. I see how far short of that
I have fallen. Forgive me, and let me be your brother. Such a love as
yours is my love for Josephine. And to-morrow--"

"Despair will open up and swallow you to the depths of your soul,"
interrupted Jean gently. "Return to your room, M'sieur. Sleep. Fight
for the love that will be yours in Heaven, as I live for my Iowaka's.
For that love will be yours, up there. Josephine has loved but one man,
and that is you. I have watched and I have seen. But in this world she
can never be more to you than she is now, for what she told you
to-nigh