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Bagot leaned forward, his body strained, every muscle tense. “A woman?” he said, as if breathing gave him sorrow–“my wife?”

“Your wife.”

“Quick! Quick! Go on–oh, go on, m’sieu’–good father.”

“She fell at my feet, begging me to save her…. I waved her off.”

The sweat dropped from Bagot’s forehead, a low growl broke from him, and he made such a motion as a lion might make at its prey.

“You wouldn’t–wouldn’t save her–you coward!” He ground the words out.

The priest raised his palm against the other’s violence. “Hush!… She drew away, saying that God and man had deserted her…. We had breakfast, the chief and I. Afterwards, when the chief had eaten much and was in good humour, I asked him where he had got the woman. He said that he had found her on the plains she had lost her way. I told him then that I wanted to buy her. He said to me, ‘What does a priest want of a woman?’ I said that I wished to give her back to her husband. He said that he had found her, and she was his, and that he would marry her when they reached the great camp of the tribe. I was patient. It would not do to make him angry. I wrote down on a piece of bark the things that I would give him for her: an order on the Company at Fort o’ Sin for shot, blankets, and beads. He said no.”

The priest paused. Bagot’s face was all swimming with sweat, his body was rigid, but the veins of his neck knotted and twisted.

“For the love of God, go on!” he said hoarsely. “Yes, ‘for the love of God.’ I have no money, I am poor, but the Company will always honour my orders, for I pay sometimes, by the help of Christ. Bien, I added some things to the list: a saddle, a rifle, and some flannel. But no, he would not. Once more I put many things down. It was a big bill–it would keep me poor for five years.–To save your wife, John Bagot, you who drove her from your door, blaspheming, and railing at such as I…. I offered the things, and told him that was all that I could give. After a little he shook his head, and said that he must have the woman for his wife. I did not know what to add. I said–‘She is white, and the white people will never rest till they have killed you all, if you do this thing. The Company will track you down.’ Then he said, ‘The whites must catch me and fight me before they kill me.’… What was there to do?”

Bagot came near to the priest, bending over him savagely.

“You let her stay with them–you with hands like a man!”

“Hush!” was the calm, reproving answer. “I was one man, they were twenty.”

“Where was your God to help you, then?”

“Her God and mine was with me.”

Bagot’s eyes blazed. “Why didn’t you offer rum–rum? They’d have done it for that–one–five–ten kegs of rum!”

He swayed to and fro in his excitement, yet their voices hardly rose above a hoarse whisper all the time. “You forget,” answered the priest, “that it is against the law, and that as a priest of my order, I am vowed to give no rum to an Indian.”

“A vow? A vow? Name of God! what is a vow beside a woman–my wife?”

His misery and his rage were pitiful to see.

“Perjure my soul? Offer rum? Break my vow in the face of the enemies of God’s Church? What have you done for me that I should do this for you, John Bagot?”

“Coward!” was the man’s despairing cry, with a sudden threatening movement. “Christ Himself would have broke a vow to save her.”

The grave, kind eyes of the priest met the other’s fierce gaze, and quieted the wild storm that was about to break.