and held it. He seemed almost unconscious of her act, but his fingers
convulsively tightened on hers; while she reflected that here was one who
needed help sorely; here was a good, warm-hearted man on whom a woman
could empty out affection like rain and get a good harvest. She really
was as simple as a child, was Virginie Poucette, and even in her
acquaintance with Sebastian Dolores, there had only been working in her
the natural desire of a primitive woman to have a man saying that which
would keep alive in her the things that make her sing as she toils; and
certainly Virginie toiled late and early on her farm. She really was
concerned for Jean Jacques. Both wife and daughter had taken flight, and
he was alone and in trouble. At this moment she felt she would like to
be a sister to him--she was young enough to be his daughter almost. Her
heart was kind.

"Now!" said Jean Jacques at last, as the Clerk of the Court's eyes
reached the end of the last page. "Now, speak! It is--it is my Zoe?"

"It is our Zoe," answered M. Fille.

"Figure de Christ, what do you wait for--she is not dead?" exclaimed
Jean Jacques with a courage which made him set his feet squarely.

The Clerk of the Court shook his head and began. "She is alive.
Madame Poucette's sister saw her by chance. Zoe was on her way up the
Saskatchewan River to the Peace River country with her husband. Her
husband's health was bad. He had to leave the stage in the United States
where he had gone after Winnipeg. The doctors said he must live the
open-air life. He and Zoe were going north, to take a farm somewhere."

"Somewhere! Somewhere!" murmured Jean Jacques. The farther away from