n meeting and intermarrying,
forming the 'blood,' until in all this Northland scarce a man or a
woman cannot call back to names that have long become dust in history.

"From the blood of some mighty king of France--of some splendid
queen--has come Jean Croisset. I have always felt that, and yet I can
trace him no farther than a hundred years back, to the quarter-strain
wife of the white factor at Monsoon. Jean has lost interest in himself
now--since his wife died three years ago. Has Josephine told you of
her?"

"Very little," said Philip.

The flush of enthusiasm faded from Adare's eyes. It was replaced by a
look that was grief deep and sincere.

"Iowaka's death was the first great blow that came to Adare House," he
said gently. "For nine years they were man and wife lovers. God's pity
they had no children. She was French--with a velvety touch of the Cree,
lovable as the wild flowers from which she took her name. Since she
went Jean has lived in a dream. He says that she is constantly with
him, and that often he hears her voice. I am glad of that. It is
wonderful to possess that kind of a love, Philip!--the love that lives
like a fresh flower after death and darkness. And we have it--you and
I."

Philip murmured softly that it was so. He felt that it was dangerous to
tread upon the ground which Adare was following. In these moments, when
this great bent-shouldered giant's heart lay like an open book before
him, he was not sure of himself. The other's unbounded faith, his
happiness, the idyllic fulness of his world as he found it, were things
which added to the heaviness and fear at Philip's heart instead of
filling him with similar emotions. Of these things he was not a part. A
voice kept whispering to him with maddening insistence that he was a
fraud. One by one John Adare was unlocking for him hallowed pictures in
which Jean had told him he could never share possession. His desire to
see Josephine again was almost feverish, and filled him with a
restlessness which he knew he must hide from Adare. So when Adare's
eyes rested upon him in a moment's silence, he said:

"Last night Jean and I were standing beside her grave. It seemed then
as though he would have been happier if he had lain near her--under the
cross."

"You are wrong," said Adare quickly. "Death is beautiful when there is
a perfect love. If my Miriam should die it would mean that she had
simply gone from my SIGHT. In return for that loss her hand