an, too, if I have to say it!"

"M'sieu' Varley?" the priest responded, and watched a galloping horseman
to whom Finden had pointed, till he rounded the corner of a little wood.

"Varley, the great London surgeon, sure! Say, father, it's a hundred to
one she'd take him, if--"

There was a curious look in Father Bourassa's face, a cloud in his eyes.
He sighed. "London, it is ver' far away," he remarked obliquely.

"What's to that? If she is with the right man, near or far is nothing."

"So far--from home," said the priest reflectively, but his eyes
furtively watched the other's face.

"But home's where man and wife are."

The priest now looked him straight in the eyes. "Then, as you say, she
will not marry M'sieu' Varley--hein?"

The humour died out of Finden's face. His eyes met the priest's eyes
steadily. "Did I say that? Then my tongue wasn't making a fool of me,
after all. How did you guess I knew--everything, father?"

"A priest knows many t'ings--so."

There was a moment of gloom, then the Irishman brightened. He came
straight to the heart of the mystery around which they had been
maneuvering. "Have you seen her husband--Meydon--this year? It isn't his
usual time to come yet."

Father Bourassa's eyes drew those of his friend into, the light of a new
understanding and revelation. They understood and trusted each other.

"Helas! He is there in the hospital," he answered, and nodded towards
a building not far away, which had been part of an old Hudson's Bay
Company's fort. It had been hastily adapted as a hospital for the
smallpox victims.

"Oh, it's Meydon, is it, that bad case I heard of to-day?"

The priest nodded again and 'pointed. "Voila, Madame Meydon, she is
coming. She has seen him--her hoosban'."

Finden's eyes followed the gesture. The little widow of Jansen was
coming from the hospital, walking slowly towards the river.

"As purty a woman, too--as purty and as straight bewhiles. What is the
matter with him--with Meydon?" Finden asked, after a moment.

"An accident in the woods--so. He arrive, it is las' night, from Great
Slave Lake."

Finden sighed. "Ten years ago he was a man to look at twice--before he
did It and got away. Now his own mother wouldn't know him--bad 'cess
to him! I knew him from the cradle almost. I spotted him here by a
knife-cut I gave him in the hand when we were lads together. A divil of
a timper always both of us had, but the good-nature was with me, and I
didn't