Northwick gave a gasp in the anguish of homesickness the words brought upon him. In a flash of what was like a luminous pang, he saw it all as it looked the night he left it in the white landscape under the high, bare wintry sky. "You don't know what you're talking about," he said, with a kind of severity. "No," Pinney admitted, "I don't suppose any one can begin to appreciate it as you do. But I was there, just after you skipped--" "Then I _was_ the kind of man who would skip," Northwick swiftly reflected-- "And I must say I would take almost any chance of getting back to a place like that. Why," he said, with an easy, caressing cordiality, "you can't have any idea how completely the thing's blown over. Why, sir, I'll bet you could go back to Hatboro' now, and be there twenty-four hours before anybody would wake up enough to make trouble for you. Mind, I don't say that's what we want you to do. We couldn't make terms for you half as well, with you on the ground. We want you to keep your distance for the present, and let your friends work for you. Like a candidate for the presidency," Pinney added, with a smile. "Hello! Who's this?" A little French maid, barefooted, black-eyed, curly-headed, shyly approached Northwick, and said, "Diner, Monsieur." "That means dinner," Northwick gravely interpreted. "I will ask you to join me." "Oh, thank you, I shall be very glad," said Pinney rising with him. They had been sitting on the steps of a structure that Pinney now noticed was an oddity among the bark-sheathed cabins of the little hamlet. "Why, what's this?" "It's the studio of an American painter who used to come here. He hasn't been here for several years." "I suppose you expect to light out if he comes," Pinney suggested, in the spirit of good fellowship towards Northwick now thoroughly established in him. "He couldn't do me any harm, if he wanted to," answered Northwick, with unresentful dignity. "No," Pinney readily acquiesced, "and I presume you'd be glad to hear a little English, after all the French you have around." "The landlord speaks a little; and the priest. He is a friend of Father Étienne." "Oh, I see," said Pinney. He noticed that Northwick walked slowly and weakly; he ventured to put his hand under his elbow, and Northwick did not resent the help offered him. "I had a very severe sickness during the latter part of the winter," he explained, "and it pulled me down a good deal." "At Rimouski, I presume?" said Pinney. "No," said Northwick, briefly. IV.