hat of the two faults his own was
the greater and that forgiveness belonged to Spurling. He sat
motionless for a long time arguing it out; he wanted to be exactly
just to both Spurling and himself. The fire died down and Pere Antoine
threw on more brushwood; the sun grew tall in the heavens and a rain
cloud gathered in the west; the floe-ice caught in its passage round
the bend, gasped and whined and, tearing itself free again, vanished
down river out of sight. The arithmetic of the problem stood thus:
Spurling's sin had been the result of a sudden violence, his own of a
conscious and premeditated uncharitableness. Which sin was morally the
worse, to shoot a fellow creature in a fit of passionate desperation,
or to turn your back upon a bygone benefactor who comes to you in
distress, comes to you when his heart is breaking, because he can
trust himself with no one else? "My sin is the greater," Granger told
himself, "I am more wrongful than wronged against"; his thoughts going
back to what le Pere had said, he added, "I am Cain, and yet I judged
Spurling as if I had been God Himself."

He was roused from his meditation by a dull thudding sound which had
commenced behind his back; turning his head, he saw that Pere Antoine
was already digging a grave. Rising without a word, he began to lend a
hand. They had not gone far when they found that the ground was hard
as granite, that it had not yet thawed out; then they commenced to
look for stones to pile upon the body so that, since the grave would
be shallow, they might raise a mound above it to prevent the wolves
from getting the body out.

By the time they had completed their preparations the rain was falling
in large and heavy drops, and the storm was blowing in great gusts
through the forest, causing the young leaves to shudder and whisper
together, and to turn their backs to the wind. The priest and the
trader stood upright from their work and gazed at one another. Already
the narrow hole, which they had scooped out, was filling with water;
there was no time to lose; yet neither seemed inclined to hurry. At
last Pere Antoine said, "So you are sure that you did not do it?"

"I cannot be sure of that."

"Ah, but you did not do it in the way I mean? You did not kill him
with the strength of your hands?"

They went together to the edge of the underbrush where the dead man's
body lay, and carried it, without disturbing the coverings, to the
side of the grave; there the