strange pain that seemed to burn like glowing coals in their depths. He
had seen not only misery and hopelessness in them; he had seen tragedy;
and they troubled him. He made up his mind to tell Father Roland about
her when he returned from the baggage car, and take him to her.

And who was Father Roland? For the first time he asked himself the
question. There was something of mystery about the Little Missioner that
he found as strange and unanswerable as the thing he had seen in the
eyes of the woman in the third car back. Father Roland had not been
asleep when he looked in and saw him hunched down in his corner near the
window, just as a little later he had seen the woman crumpled down in
hers. It was as if the same oppressing hand had been upon them in those
moments. And why had Father Roland asked him of all men to go with him
as a comrade into the North? Following this he asked himself the still
more puzzling question: Why had he accepted the invitation?

He stared out into the night, as if that night held an answer for him.
He had not noticed until now that the storm had ceased its beating
against the window. It was not so black outside. With his face close to
the glass he could make out the dark wall of the forest. From the rumble
of the trucks under him he knew that the two engines were making good
time. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter of twelve. They had been
travelling for half an hour and he figured that the divisional point
ahead would be reached by midnight. It seemed a very short time after
that when he heard the tiny bell in his watch tinkle off the hour of
twelve. The last strokes were drowned in a shrill blast of the engine
whistle, and a moment later he caught the dull glow of lights in the
hollow of a wide curve the train was making.

Father Roland had told him the train would wait at this point fifteen