again into his gloom and silence. Two or three times Philip caught
Jean watching him furtively. He made no effort to force a
conversation, and when he had finished his pipe he rose and went
to the tent which they were to share together. At last he found
himself not unwilling to be alone. He closed the flap to shut out
the still brilliant illumination of the fire, drew a blanket about
him, and stretched himself out on the top of his sleeping bag. He
wanted to think.

He closed his eyes to bring back more vividly the picture of
Josephine as she had given him her lips to kiss. This, of all the
unusual happenings of that afternoon, seemed most like a dream to
him, yet his brain was afire with the reality of it. His mind
struggled again with the hundred questions which he had asked
himself that day, and in the end Josephine remained as completely
enshrouded in mystery as ever. Yet of one thing was he convinced.
The oppression of the thing under which Jean and the girl were
fighting had become more acute with the turning of their faces
homeward. At Adare House lay the cause of their hopelessness, of
Josephine's grief, and of the gloom under which the half-breed had
fallen so completely that night. Until they reached Adare House he
could guess at nothing. And there--what would he find?

In spite of himself he felt creeping slowly over him a shuddering
fear that he had not acknowledged before. The darkness deepening
as the fire died away, the stillness of the night, the low wailing
of a wind growing out of the north roused in him the unrest and
doubt that sunshine and day had dispelled. An uneasy slumber came
at last with this disquiet. His mind was filled with fitful
dreams. Again he was back with Radisson and MacTavish, listening