things told, his mind was being awakened in a massive kind of fashion.
He was viewing this crisis of his life as one sees a human face in the
wide searching light of a great fire. He was restless, but he held
himself still by a strong effort, not wishing to disturb the little
sleeper. His eyes seemed to retreat farther and farther back under his
shaggy brows.

The great logs in the chimney burned brilliantly, and a brass crucifix
over the child's head now and again reflected soft little flashes of
light. This caught the hunter's eye. Presently there grew up in him a
vague kind of hope that, somehow, this symbol would bring him luck--that
was the way he put it to himself. He had felt this--and something
more--when Dominique prayed. Somehow, Dominique's prayer was the only
one he had ever heard that had gone home to him, had opened up the big
sluices of his nature, and let the light of God flood in. No, there was
another: the one Lucette made on the day that they were married, when a
wonderful timid reverence played through his hungry love for her.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

IV


Hours passed. All at once, without any other motion or gesture, the
boy's eyes opened wide with a strange, intense look.