moment, standing with eyes fixed on the face of the
crucified figure, he said, in a shaking voice:

"_Pardon, bon Jesu! Sauves mon enfant! Ne me laissez pas seul!_"

The boy looked up with eyes again grown unnaturally heavy, and said:

"Amen!... _Bon Jesu!... Encore! Encore, mon pere!_"

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

V

The boy slept. The father stood still by the bed for a time, but at last
slowly turned and went toward the fire.

Outside, two figures were approaching the hut--a man and a woman; yet at
first glance the man might easily have been taken for a woman, because
of his clean-shaven face, of the long black robe which he wore, and
because his hair fell loose on his shoulders.

"Have patience, my daughter," said the man. "Do not enter till I call
you. But stand close to the door, if you will, and hear all."

So saying he raised his hand as in a kind of benediction, passed to the
door, and, after tapping very softly, opened it, entered, and closed it
behind him--not so quickly, however, but that the woman caught a glimpse
of the father and the boy. In her eyes there was the divine look of
motherhood.

"Peace be to this house!" said the man gently, as he stepped forward
from the door.

The father, startled, turned shrinkingly on him, as though he had seen a
spirit.

"_M'sieu' le cure!_" he said in French, with an accent much poorer than
that of the priest, or even of his own son. He had learned French from
his wife; he himself was English.

The priest's quick eye had taken in the lighted candles at the little
shrine, even as he saw the painfully changed aspect of the man.

"The wife and child, Bagot?" he asked, looking round. "Ah, the boy!" he
added, and going toward the bed, continued, presently, in a low voice:
"Dominique is ill?"

Bagot nodded, and then answered: "A wildcat and then fever, Father
Corraine."

The priest felt the boy's pulse softly, then with a close personal look
he spoke hardly above his breath, yet distinctly, too:

"Your wife, Bagot?"

"She is not here, m'sieu'." The voice was low and gloomy.

"Where is she, Bagot?"

"I do not know, m'sieu'."

"When did you see her last?"

"Four weeks ago, m'sieu'."

"That was September, this is October--winter. On the ranches they let
their cattle loose upon the plains in winter, knowing not where they go,
yet looking for them to return in the spring. But a woman--a woman and a
wife--is different.... Bagot, you hav