snow"--had showed that he was on the verge;
the bells of the church pealing in the summer air brought him near it once
again. How many years had gone since he had heard church-bells?
Bickersteth, gazing at him in eager scrutiny, wondered if, after all, he
might be mistaken about him. But no, this man had never been born and
bred in the Far North. His was a type which belonged to the civilization
from which he himself had come. There would soon be the test of it all.
Yet he shuddered, too, to think what might happen if it was all true,
and discovery or reunion should shake to the centre the very life of
the two long-parted ones.

He saw the look of perplexed pain and joy at once in the face of the old
man, but he said nothing, and he was almost glad when the bell stopped.
The old man turned to him.

"What is it?" he said. "I remember--" but he stopped suddenly, shaking his
head.

An hour later, cleared of the dust of travel, the two walked slowly toward
the church from the little tavern where they were lodged. The service was
now over, but the concert had begun. The church was full, and there were
people in the porch; but these made way for the two strangers; and, as
Bickersteth was recognized by two or three present, place was found for
them. Inside, the old man stared round him in a confused and troubled way,
but his motions were quiet and abstracted, and he looked like some old
viking, his workaday life done, come to pray ere he went hence forever.
They had entered in a pause in the concert, but now two ladies came
forward to the chancel steps, and one with her hands clasped before her,
began to sing:

"When the swallows homeward fly,
And the roses' bloom is o'er,
And the nightingale's sweet song
In the woods is heard no more--"

It was Alice--Alice the daughter--and presently the mother, the other
Alice, joined in the refrain. At sight of them Bickersteth's eyes had
filled, not with tears, but with a cloud of feeling, so that he went
blind. There she was, the girl he loved. Her voice was ringing in his
ears. In his own joy for one instant he had forgotten the old man beside
him and the great test that was now upon him. He turned quickly, however,
as the old man got to his feet. For an instant the lost exile of the North
stood as though transfixed. The blood slowly drained from his face, and in
his eyes was an agony of struggle and