"Thy neighbour's wife and murder. Those are horrible. They double on a
man one time or another; always."

Here, as in curiosity, Pierre pierced his finger with the needle, and
watched the blood form in a little globule. Looking at it meditatively
and sardonically, he said: "There is only one end to these. Blood
for blood is a great matter; and I used to wonder if it would not be
terrible for a man to see his death coming on him drop by drop, like
that." He let the spot of blood fall to the floor. "But now I know that
there is a punishment worse than that... 'mon Dieu!' worse than that,"
he added.

Into Shon's face a strange look had suddenly come. "Yes, there's
something worse than that, Pierre."

"So, 'bien?'"

Shon made the sacred gesture of his creed. "To be punished by the dead.
And not see them--only hear them." And his eyes steadied firmly to the
other's.

Pierre was about to reply, but there came the sound of footsteps through
the open door, and presently Wendling entered slowly. He was pale and
worn, and his eyes looked out with a searching anxiousness. But that did
not render him less comely. He had always dressed in black and white,
and this now added to the easy and yet severe refinement of his person.
His birth and breeding had occurred in places unfrequented by such as
Shon and Pierre; but plains and wild life level all; and men are friends
according to their taste and will, and by no other law. Hence these
with Wendling. He stretched out his hand to each without a word. The
hand-shake was unusual; he had little demonstration ever. Shon looked up
surprised, but responded. Pierre followed with a swift, inquiring look;
then, in the succeeding pause, he offered cigarettes. Wendling took one;
and all, silent, sat down. The sun streamed intemperately through the
doorway, making a broad ribbon of light straight across the floor
to Wendling's feet. After lighting his cigarette, he looked into the
sunlight for a moment, still not speaking. Shon meanwhile had started
his pipe, and now, as if he found the silence awkward,--"It's a day for
God's country, this," he said: "to make man a Christian for little or
much, though he play with the Divil betunewhiles." Without looking at
them, Wendling said, in a low voice: "It was just such a day, down there
in Quebec, when It happened. You could hear the swill of the river, the
water licking the piers, and the saws in the Big Mill and the Little
Mill as they marched thr