The days passed. At the end of a week Wayne expected to leave; but the freedom and peace were sweet. He was enjoying a luxury of unhappiness. Christmas came, but it brought him no joy, only unhappy memories. He kept clear of the oratory, where the recitation of offices was interminable. The priests were happy souls to be able to believe in such things! Brother Azarius, the sailor, asked him to walk to the village for the mail after the midday meal, which was amplified into a feast by gifts from the farmers of the valley. A novel Christmas this, for Wayne Craighill, dining with priests in a mountain monastery, but they were cheerful, wholesome fellows and he liked their talk, which was utterly unaffected and interesting. He set out with Brother Azarius for the village in the valley soon after dinner. When the mail-bag was handed out at the general store Wayne felt a pang of homesickness--his first--at beholding this tie between the quiet hills and the throbbing world below. He had sent no message of any kind to Fanny, who had always included him in the Christmas celebrations at her house; she was still South when he left and unless Wingfield had told her, she did not know his whereabouts. He wrote a telegram in the railway station wishing her and her household a merry Christmas. “Don’t trouble about me; I am perfectly well.” He began a message to his father, paused uncertainly when he had written the address, and tore it up, the old resentment on fire again. He left the station but paused in the highway and went back. “Best wishes for a happy Christmas,” he wrote to Jean at her boarding-house address. He could not for the life of him add a word to this, though he wasted half a dozen blanks in futile trials, while Brother Azarius tramped up and down the station platform. Poor Wayne! Too bad life isn’t all spelled out in the nursery picture books that we might know the worst at the beginning and be done with it! It was well that Brother Azarius had that capital story of his shipwreck off Martinique up his sleeve for emergencies like this or Wayne might have found the memory of Jean’s hand on his cheek too much for him--that dear, brave hand that had known labour! The brothers cut their own fuel and the next morning he found an axe and plunged into the snowy wood. The priests had scattered widely and only two remained at the house. Stoddard had gone West to be absent a month, but Wayne was beginning to enjoy his security and isolation. By noon he had blistered his hands, but he kept manfully at work. In a few days he had developed skill and viewed the increase in his daily product with satisfaction. His bodily health had never been so good. At times he was almost happy and went whistling about his work. This was what Jean had told him to do: find labour with his hands. And all these days Jean was never out of his thoughts, never out of his heart.