along. Why should I
hate the thought of him for Jessie? Can you tell me?" She shook her
head impatiently. "How could you? I couldn't tell myself."

The shadow had deepened in Ailsa Mowbray's eyes. She knew she was
unjust. She knew she was going back on her given word. She despised
the thought. It was treachery. Yet she knew that both had become
definite in her mind from the moment when Jessie had involuntarily
confided her secret to her.

Father Jose shook his head.

"No. I can't tell you those things, ma'am," he said. "But I'm glad of
them. Very glad."

He drew a deep breath as his gaze, abstracted, far off, was turned in
the direction where his Mission stood in all its pristine, makeshift
simplicity. The mother turned on him sharply as his quiet reply
reached her.

"Why?" she demanded. "Why are you glad?"

Her eyes were searching his clean-cut profile. She knew she was
seeking this man's considered judgment. She knew she was seeking to
probe the feeling and thought which prompted his approval, because of
her faith in him.

"Because Jessie's worth a--better man."

"Better?"

"Surely."

For all his prompt reply Father Jose remained searching the confines of
the woodland clearing in his curiously abstracted fashion.

"You see, ma'am," he went on presently, helping himself to a pinch of
snuff, and shutting the box with a sharp slam, "goodness is just a
matter of degree. That's goodness as we folk of the earth understand
it. We see results. We don't see the motive. It's motive that counts
in all goodness. The man who lives straight, who acts straight when
temptation offers, may be no better than--than the man who falls for
evil. I once knew a _saint_ who was hanged by the neck because he
murdered a man. He gave his life, and intended to give it, for a poor
weak fellow creature who was being tortured out of her senses by a man
who was no better than a hound of Hell. That man was made of the same
stuff as John Kars, if I know him. I can't see Murray McTavish acting
that way. Yet I could see him act like the other feller--if it suited
him. Murray's good. Sure he's good. But John Kars is--better."

The mother sighed.

"I feel that way, too." Then in a moment her eyes lit with a subtle
apprehension, as though the man's words had planted a poison in her
heart that was rapidly spreading through her veins. "But there's
nothing wrong with Murray? I mean like--like you said."

Th