His eyes were fixed on the smouldering coals, and over his face there was a mystic veil--a thing not of this world but born of the undying spirit. It was like a mist that settles on a river in the hour between sunset and night. "Basil," I cried; and the sound of my own voice startled me. I do not know what words were surging to my lips, for he turned to me and the smile of compassion in his eyes held me silent. Something choked in my throat.... I felt that I wanted to struggle to my feet and stand at the salute. For the face that looked into mine was that of a CONQUEROR. A burning ember fell from the grate and lay on the tiled surface of the hearth. PETITE SIMUNDE I Three hundred miles north of Toronto, the Cobalt mining country surrenders its daily toll of silver to the world. In that region there is mostly rock. Where woods exist, the trees are gaunt and defiant, as though resentful of the approach of man; in winter they stand like white-shrouded ghosts, and the wind howls dismally through them until in the little settlements across Lake Timiskaming men draw closer to the fire, and women croon comfort to frightened children, yet half-believe, themselves, the Indian legend that another soul is on its way to the Great Unknown. Five miles north of Cobalt the town of Haileybury straggles down a hill to the lake, on the other side of which can be seen the blue shores of Pontiac, Quebec, where lies the sleepy little hamlet known as Ville Marie, possessed of its church, its wayside public-house, "Les Voyageurs," and a few vagabond frame buildings. The ring of the blacksmith's anvil can be heard throughout the day, for there is little else to drown the noise. But when the lumber-jacks come in from the woods, or the river-runners from their convoys of logs, there is always the sound of a noisy chorus from "Les Voyageurs," led (in the times we write of) by Pierre Generaud, who knows that singing a constant fortissimo stimulates thirst in participants and auditors alike. On Sunday there is the sound of the organ, and the villagers walk about in ill-fitting garments of respectability: a simple God-fearing community, knowing no world but their own, and finding their joy of life in mere existence. It was gathering dusk, one summer evening in the year 1914, when the figure of a young officer wended its way towards "Les Voyageurs."