round
for water, then paused, folded the paper up, and put it in his pocket
again. He went over to the window and looked out. His shoulders set
square. "No, no, no, not a speck on my tongue!" he said. "What I can't
do of my own will is not worth doing. It's too foolish, to yield to the
shadow of an old appetite. I play this game alone--here in Chaudiere."

He looked out and down. The sweet sun of early spring was shining
hard, and the snow was beginning to pack, to hang like a blanket on
the branches, to lie like a soft coverlet over all the forest and the
fields. Far away on the frozen river were saplings stuck up to show
where the ice was safe--a long line of poles from shore to shore--and
carioles were hurrying across to the village. Being market-day, the
place was alive with the cheerful commerce of the habitant. The bell
of the parish church was ringing. The sound of it came up distantly and
peacefully. Charley drew a long breath, turned away to a pail of water,
filled a dipper half full, and drank it off gaspingly. Then he returned
to the window with a look of relief.

"That does it," he said. "The horrible thing is gone again--out of my
brain and out of my throat."

As he stood there, Jo came up the hill with a bundle in his arms.
Charley watched him for a moment, half whimsically, half curiously. Yet
he sighed once too as Portugais opened the door and came into the room.
"Well done, Jo!" said he. "You have 'em?"

"Yes, M'sieu'. A good suit, and I believe they'll fit. Old Trudel says
it's the best suit he's made in a year. I'm afraid he'll not make many
more suits, old Trudel.

"He's very bad. When he goes there'll be no tailor--ah, old Trudel will
be missed for sure, M'sieu'!"

Jo spread the clothes out on the table--a coat, waistcoat, and trousers
of fulled cloth, grey and bulky, and smelling of the loom and the
tailor's iron. Charley looked at them interestedly, then glanced at
the clothes he had on, the suit that had belonged to him last
year--grave-clothes.

He drew himself up as though rousing from a dream. "Come, Jo, clear out,
and you shall have your new habitant in a minute," he said. Portugais
left the room, and when he came back, Charley was dressed in the suit
of grey fulled cloth. It was loose, but comfortable, and save for the
refined face--on which a beard was growing now--and the eye-glass, he
might easily have passed for a farmer. When he put on the dog-skin
fur cap and a small muffler