ome breakfast; perhaps he would like a cup of tea
and some toast.

Northwick caught eagerly at the suggestion, and in a few minutes the tea
was brought him by a young girl, whom Bird called Virginie; he said she
was his grand-niece, and he hoped that her singing had not disturbed the
gentleman: she always sang; one could hardly stop her; but she meant no
harm. He stayed to serve Northwick himself, and Northwick tried to put
away the suspicion Bird's kindness roused in him. He was in such need of
kindness that he did not wish to suspect it. Nevertheless, he watched
Bird narrowly, as he put the milk and sugar in his tea, and he listened
warily when he began to talk of the priest and to praise him. It was a
pleasure, Bird said, for one educated man to converse with another; and
Father Etienne and he often maintained opposite sides of a question
merely for the sake of the discussion; it was like a game of cards where
there were no stakes; you exercised your mind.

Northwick understood this too little to believe it; when he talked, he
talked business; even the jokes among the men he was used to meant
business.

"Then you haven't really found any gold in the hills?" he asked, slyly.

"My faith, yes!" said Bird. "But," he added sadly, "perhaps it would not
pay to mine it. I will show you when you get up. Better not go to
Chicoutimi to-day! It is snowing."

"Snowing?" Northwick repeated. "Then I can't go!"

"Stop in bed till dinner. That is the best," Bird suggested. "Try to get
some sleep. Sleep is youth. When we wake we are old again, but some of
the youth stick to our fingers. No?" He smiled gayly, and went out,
closing the door softly after him, and Northwick drowsed. In a dream
Bird came back to him with some specimens from his gold mine. Northwick
could see that the yellow metal speckling the quartz was nothing but
copper pyrites, but he thought it best to pretend that he believed it
gold; for Bird, while he stood over him with a lamp in one hand, was
feeling with the other for the buckle of Northwick's belt, as he sat up
in bed. He woke in fright, and the fear did not afterwards leave him in
the fever which now began. He had his lucid intervals, when he was aware
that he was wisely treated and tenderly cared for, and that his host and
all his household were his devoted watchers and nurses; when he knew the
doctor and the young priest, in their visits. But all this he perceived
cloudily, and as with a thickness of s