--?"

Jean's fingers tightened about his like cords of steel.

"We may kill, M'sieur, but that will not save hearts crushed
like--See!--like I crush these ash berries under my foot! I tell you
again, nothing like this has ever happened before since the world
began, and nothing like it will ever happen again!"

Steadily Philip looked into Jean's eyes.

"You have seen something of the world, Jean?"

"A good deal, M'sieur. For seven years I went to school at Montreal,
and prepared myself for the holy calling of Missioner. That was many
years ago. I am now simply Jean Jacques Croisset, of the forests."

"Then you know--you must know, that where there is life there is hope,"
argued Philip eagerly, "I have promised not to pry after her secret, to
fight for her only as she tells me to fight. But if I knew, Jean. If I
knew what this trouble is--how and where to fight! Is this
knowledge--impossible?"

"Impossible, M'sieur!"

Slowly Jean withdrew his hand.

"Don't take it that way, man," exclaimed Philip quickly. "I'm not
ferreting for her secret now. Only I've got to know--is it impossible
for her to tell me?"

"As impossible, M'sieur, as it would be for me. And Our Lady herself
could not make me do that if I heard Her voice commanding me out of
Heaven. All that I can do is to wait, and watch, and guard. And all
that you can do, M'sieur, is to play the part she has asked of you. In
doing that, and doing it well, you will keep the last bit of life in
her heart from being trampled out. If you love her"--he picked up a
tepee pole before he finished, and then, said--"you will do as you have
promised!"

There was a finality in the shrug of Jean's shoulders which Philip did
not question. He picked up an axe, and while Jean arranged the tepee
poles began to chop down a dry birch. As the chips flew his mind flew
faster. In his optimism he had half believed that the cloud of mystery
in which Josephine had buried him would, in time, be voluntarily lifted
by her. He had not been able to make himself believe that any situation
could exist where hopelessness was as complete as she had described.
Without arguing with himself he had taken it for granted that she had
been labouring under a tremendous strain, and that no matter what her
trouble was it had come to look immeasurably darker to her than it
really was. But Jean's attitude, his low and unexcited voice, and the
almost omniscient decisiveness of his words had convinced him