andiwork.

The old man pointed Philip to a chair near the large table, and sat
down close to him. At his feet was a stool covered with silvery
lynx-skin, and D'Arcambal looked at this, his strong, grim face
relaxing into a gentle smile of happiness.

"There is where Jeanne sits--at my feet," he said. "It has been her
place for many years. When she is not there I am lost. Life ceases.
This room has been our world. To-night you are in Fort o' God;
to-morrow you will see D'Arcambal House. You have heard of that,
perhaps, but never of Fort o' God. That belongs to Jeanne and me, to
Pierre--and you. Fort o' God is the heart, the soul, the life's blood
of D'Arcambal House. It is this room and two or three others.
D'Arcambal House is our barrier. When strangers come, they see
D'Arcambal House; plain rooms, of rough wood; quarters such as you have
seen at posts and stations; the mask which gives no hint of what is
hidden within. It is there that we live to the world; it is here that
we live to ourselves. Jeanne has my permission to tell you whatever she
wishes, a little later. But I am curious, and being an old man must be
humored first. I am still trembling. You must tell me what happened to
Jeanne."

For an hour they talked, and Philip went over one by one the events as
they had occurred since the fight on the cliff, omitting only such
things as he thought that Jeanne and Pierre might wish to keep secret
to themselves. At the end of that hour he was certain that D'Arcambal
was unaware of the dark cloud that had suddenly come into Jeanne's
life. The old man's brow was knitted with deep lines, and his powerful
jaws were set hard, as Philip told of the ambush, of the wounding of
Pierre, and the flight of his assailants with his daughter. It was to
get money, the old man thought. The half-breed had suggested that, and
Jeanne herself had given it as her opinion. Why else should they have
been attacked at Churchill? Such things had occurred before, he told
Philip. The little daughter of the factor at Nelson House had been
stolen, and held for ransom. With a hundred questions he wrung from
Philip every detail of the second fight and of the struggle for life in
the rapids. He betrayed no physical excitement, even in those moments
of Philip's description when Jeanne hung between life and death; but in
his eyes there was the glow of red-hot fires. At last there came to
interrupt them the low, musical tinkling of a bell under the tabl