"Better be said in my house, not here," replied Denzil. His face was
pale, but there was fire in his eyes. There was no danger of violence,
and, if there were, Tarboe could deal with it. Why should there be
violence? Why should that semi-insanity in Denzil's eyes disturb him?
The one thing to do was to forge ahead. He nodded.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked presently, as they passed through
the gate.

"To my little house by the Three Trees. I've got things I'd like to show
you, and there's some things I'd like to say. You are a big hulk of a
man, and I'm nobody, but yet I've been close to you and yours in my time
--that's so, for sure."

"You've been close to me and mine in your time, eh? I didn't know that."

"No, you didn't know it. Nobody knew it--I've kept it to myself. Your
family wasn't all first-class--but no."

They soon reached the plain board-house, with the well-laid foundation of
stone, by the big Three Trees. Inside the little spare, undecorated
room, Tarboe looked round. It was all quiet and still enough. It was
like a lodge in the wilderness. Somehow, the atmosphere of it made him
feel apart and lonely. Perhaps that was a little due to the timbered
ceiling, to the walls with cedar scantlings showing, to the crude look of
everything-the head of a moose, the skins hanging down the sides of the
walls, the smell of the cedar, and the swift movement of a tame red
squirrel, which ran up the walls and over the floor and along the
chimney-piece, for Denzil avoided the iron stove so common in these new