dead upon it--with Heldon's wife: two shameless suicides. . . . When
he came down from the mountain the hair upon his face was white, though
that upon his head remained black as it had always been. And those
frozen figures stayed there like statues with that other crimson flag:
until, one day, a great-bodied wind swept out of the north, and, in pity,
carried them down a bottomless fissure.

But long before this happened, The Woman had fled from Little Goshen in
the night, and her house was burned to the ground.






THE FLOOD

Wendling came to Fort Anne on the day that the Reverend Ezra Badgley and
an unknown girl were buried. And that was a notable thing. The man had
been found dead at his evening meal; the girl had died on the same day;
and they were buried side by side. This caused much scandal, for the man
was holy, and the girl, as many women said, was probably evil altogether.
At the graves, when the minister's people saw what was being done, they
piously protested; but the Factor, to whom Pierre had whispered a word,
answered them gravely that the matter should go on: since none knew but
the woman was as worthy of heaven as the man. Wendling chanced to stand
beside Pretty Pierre.

"Who knows!" he said aloud, looking hard at the graves, "who knows!....
She died before him, but the dead can strike."