had never come back. That was weeks ago, and there had been no word nor
sign of her since. The man was now busy with it all, in a slow, cumbrous
way. A nature more to be touched by things seen than by 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 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.

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

"Father," he said slowly, and in a kind of dream, "when you hear a sweet
horn blow at night, is it the Scarlet Hunter calling?"

"P'r'aps. Why, Dominique?" He made up his mind to humour the boy, though
it gave him strange aching forebodings. He had seen grown men and women
with these fancies--and they had died.