Jacques grew old gracefully, but he certainly grew old rapidly. His beard was white; his shoulders were stooping; he suffered a good deal in damp days from rheumatism--fortunately not in his hands, but in his legs. One spring there was a long spell of abominable weather, just between freezing and thawing. He caught a heavy cold and took to his bed. Hose came over to look after him. For a few days the old fiddler kept up his courage, and would sit up in the bed trying to play; then his strength and his spirit seemed to fail together. He grew silent and indifferent. When Hose came in he would find Jacques with his face turned to the wall, where there was a tiny brass crucifix hanging below the violin, and his lips moving quietly. “Don't ye want the fiddle, Jack? I 'd like ter hear some o' them old-time tunes ag'in.” But the artifice failed. Jacques shook his head. His mind seemed to turn back to the time of his first arrival in the village, and beyond it. When he spoke at all, it was of something connected with this early time. “Dat was bad taim' when I near keel Bull Corey, hein?” Hose nodded gravely. “Dat was beeg storm, dat night when I come to Bytown. You remember dat?” Yes, Hose remembered it very well. It was a real old-fashioned storm. “Ah, but befo dose taim', dere was wuss taim' dan dat--in Canada. Nobody don' know 'bout dat. I lak to tell you, 'Ose, but I can't. No, it is not possible to tell dat, nevair!” It came into Hose's mind that the case was serious. Jack was going to die. He never went to church, but perhaps the Sunday-school might count for something. He was only a Frenchman, after all, and Frenchmen had their own ways of doing things. He certainly ought to see some kind of a preacher before he went out of the wilderness. There was a Canadian priest in town that week, who had come down to see about getting up a church for the French people who worked in the mills. Perhaps Jack would like to talk with him. His face lighted up at the proposal. He asked to have the room tidied up, and a clean shirt put on him, and the violin laid open in its case on a table beside the bed, and a few other preparations made for the visit. Then the visitor came, a tall, friendly, quiet-looking man about Jacques's age, with a smooth face and a long black cassock. The door was shut, and they were left alone together. “I am comforted that you are come, mon pere,” said the sick man, “for I have the heavy heart. There is a secret that I have kept for many years. Sometimes I had almost forgotten that it must be told at the last; but now it is the time to speak. I have a sin to confess--a sin of the most grievous, of the most unpardonable.” The listener soothed him with gracious words; spoke of the mercy that waits for all the penitent; urged him to open his heart without delay. “Well, then, mon pere, it is this that makes me fear to die. Long since, in Canada, before I came to this place, I have killed a man. It was--”