rd and the doctor, and he could find only one
answer to them. He wondered if he ought not to speak to Northwick, and
delicately offer him the chance to unburden his mind to such a friend as
only a priest could be to such a sinner. But he could not think of any
approach sufficiently delicate. Northwick was not a Catholic, and the
church had no hold upon him. Besides, he had a certain plausibility and
reserve of demeanor that forbade suspicion, as well as the intimacy
necessary to the good which Pere Etienne wished to do the lonely and
silent man. Northwick was in those days much occupied with a piece of
writing, which he always locked carefully into his bag when he left his
room, and which he copied in part or in whole again and again, burning
the rejected drafts in the hearth-fire that had now superseded the
stove, and stirring the carbonized paper into ashes, so that no word was
left distinguishable on it.

One day there came up the river a bateau from Tadoussac, bringing the
news that the ice was all out of the St. Lawrence. "It will not be long
time, now," said Bird, "before we begin to see you' countrymen. The
steamboats come to Haha Bay in the last of June."

Northwick responded to the words with no visible sensation. His
sphinx-like reticence vexed Bird more and more, and intolerably deepened
the mystification of his failure to do any of the things with his
capital which Bird had promised himself and his fellow-citizens. He no
longer talked of going to Chicoutimi, that was true, and there was not
the danger of his putting his money into Markham's enterprise there; but
neither did he show any interest or any curiosity concerning Bird's
discovery of the precious metal at Haha Bay. Bird had his delicacy as
well as Pere Etienne, and he could not thrust himself upon his guest,
even with the intention of making their joint fortune.

A few days later there came to Pere Etienne a letter, which, when he
read it, superseded the interest in Northwick, which Bird felt gnawing
him like a perpetual hunger. It was from the cure at Rimouski, where
Pere Etienne's family lived, and it brought word that his mother, who
had been in failing health all winter, could not long survive, and so
greatly desired to see him, that his correspondent had asked their
superior to allow him to replace Pere Etienne at Haha Bay, while he came
to visit her. Leave had been given, and Pere Etienne might expect his
friend very soon after his letter rea