"He knew, he said, that they were not married, but he caught enough of their English to know they were looking forward to being married when it should be made possible for them. Whence they came, he never knew; whither they went, he never asked. They came, as birds come that mate in the spring; they went, as the late birds go after the mating season is over, with the first snow-fall; but, Marcia--" "Yes, Jamie." "You won't mind my speaking out after what was said last evening?" "I mind nothing from you." "André told us that before they left he knew a nestling was on its way; the slender form, like a willow shoot, as he expressed it, was rounder, and the face of the girl was the face of a tender doe. You should have heard him tell it--there in the setting of forest, lake and mountain! "'All this happened long, long ago,' he said, 'but still I hear her voice in the forest; still I see her eyes in the first wood violets; see her smile that made sunshine in the darkest woods. Still I hear her light steps about the camp and follow her still in thought across the last portage when we carried her in our arms; still see her waving her hand to me from the canoe that floated like a brown leaf on the blue lake waters. Wherever she may be, may the Holy Virgin, Our Lady of the Snows, guard her--and her child! I have waited all these years for her to come again.' "Marcia--André called their love 'forest love'. Sometimes I think he spoke truly; untaught, he knew the difference." I listened, caught by the pathos of the tale, the charm of old André's words; but in love I was untaught. I wondered how Jamie could know the "difference". "But now to my point. Of course I listened all eyes and ears to André. When he finished, the camp fire was low. The full moon had risen above the waters of the lake and lighted the tree-fringed shore. I turned to Ewart, and caught the same look on his face that I saw last night when the Doctor was telling his story: the look of a man who is seeing ghosts--more than one. For three days I scarce got a decent word when he was with me, which was seldom; he was off by himself in the forest. So you see _this_, last night's occurrence, does not wholly surprise me." We sat for a while without talking. Jamie took his pipe, filled and lighted it with a glowing coal. "Jamie," I said at last. He nodded encouragingly. "You know you told me about that queer rumor that crops out at such odd times and places--about Mr. Ewart's having been married and divorced, and the boy he is educating, 'Boy or girl?' you know he said--" "Yes, I know." "Might n't it be--I know you did n't believe it, but would n't it be possible that there is some truth in that, distorted, perhaps, but enough to make him suffer when there is any reference to love that has brought with it misery and suffering?"