is loss, and got well on his way, and
discovered it then, it would be too late. If he returned--she only saw one
step before her, she would wait for that, and deal with it when it came.
She was thinking of Lucy, of her own lover ruined and gone. She was calm
in her madness.

At the first light of the moon she roused him. She had put food into his
fur-coat pocket, and after he had drunk a bowl of hot pea-soup, while she
told him his course again, she opened the door, and he passed out into the
night. He started forward without a word, but came back again and caught
her hand.

"_Pardon_," he said; "I go forget everyt'ing except _dat_. But I t'ink
what you do for me, it is better than all my life. _Bien sur_, I will come
again, when I get my mind to myself. Ah, but you are beautibul," he said,
"an' you not happy. Well, I come again--yes, _a Dieu._"

He was gone into the night, with the moon silvering the sky, and the
steely frost eating into the sentient life of this northern world. Inside
the house, with the bearskin blind dropped at the window again, and the
fire blazing high, Loisette sat with the Governor's reprieve in her hand.
Looking at it, she wondered why it had been given to Ba'tiste Caron and
not to a police-officer. Ah yes, it was plain--Ba'tiste was a woodsman and
plainsman, and could go far more safely than a constable, and faster.
Ba'tiste had reason for going fast, and he would travel night and day--he
was travelling night and day indeed. And now Ba'tiste might get there, but
the reprieve would not. He would not be able to stop the hanging of
Haman--the hanging of Rube Haman.

A change came over her. Her eyes blazed, her breast heaved now. She had
been so quiet, so cold and still. But life seemed moving in her once
again. The woman, Kate Wimper, who had helped to send two people to their
graves, would now drink the dregs of shame, if she was capable of
shame--would be robbed of her happiness, if so be she loved Rube Haman.

She stood up, as though to put the paper in the fire, but paused suddenly
at one thought--_Rube Haman was innocent of murder._

Even so, he was not innocent of Lucy's misery and death, or the death of
the little one who only opened its eyes to the light for an instant, and
then went into the dark again. But truly she was justified! When Haman was
gone things would go on just the same--and she had been so bitter, her
heart had been pierced as with a knife these past three years. Agai