on
of theft that she could never prove untrue? How could he bring
this reproach upon the Church? Why, the marriage would have no
precedent; and yet he loved her, loved her sweet, silent ways,
her listening attitudes, her clear, brown, consumptive-suggesting
skin. She was the only thing in all the irksome mission life that
had responded to him, had encouraged him to struggle anew for
the spiritual welfare of this poor red race. Of course, in
Penetanguishene they had told him she was irreclaimable, a thief,
with ready lies to cover her crimes; for that very reason he felt
tender towards her, she was so sinful, so pathetically human.

He could have mastered himself, perhaps, had she not responded, had
he not seen the laughless eyes laugh alone for him, had she not once
when a momentary insanity possessed them both confessed in words
her love for him as he had done to her. But now? Well, now only
this horrible tale of theft and untruth hung between them like a
veil; now even with his arms locked about her, his eyes drowned in
hers, his ears caught the whispers of calumny, his thoughts were
perforated with the horror of his Bishop's censure, and these
things rushed between his soul and hers, like some bridgeless deep
he might not cross, and so his lonely life went on.

And then one night his sweet humanity, his grand, strong love rose
up, battled with him, and conquered. He cast his pharisaical ideas,
and the Church's "I am better than thou," aside forever; he would
go now, to-night, he would ask her to be his wife, to have and to
hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for--

A shadow fell across the doorway of his simple home; it was August
Beaver, the trapper, with the urgent request that he would come
across to French Island at once, for old "Medicine" Joe was there,
dying, and wished to see the minister. At another time Cragstone
would have felt sympathetic, now he was only irritated; he wanted
to find Lydia, to look in her laughless eyes, to feel her fingers
in his hair, to tell her he did not care if she were a hundred
times a thief, that he loved her, loved her, loved her, and he
would marry her despite the Church, despite--

"Joe, he's near dead, you come now?" broke in August's voice.
Cragstone turned impatiently, got his prayer-book, followed the
trapper, took his place in the canoe, and paddled in silence up
the bay.

The moon arose, large, limpid, flooding the cabin with a wondrous
light, and