“Jakapa wished for Antoine, and she was with him,” explained Crossman uneasily, yet resentful of the Priest’s vehemence.

“I can not wait.”  The Cure rose and began repinning his clerical garments.  “Where is Jakapa?  Have you a pair of snowshoes to lend me?  You must forgive my agitation, Monsieur, but you do not understand—­I—­which way?”

“He should be at Mile End, just above the Bijou.  Sit still, Father; I will send for him.  The wind sets right.  I’ll call him in.”  Slipping on his beaver jacket, he stepped outside and struck two blows on the great iron ring, a bent rail, that swung from its gibbet like a Chinese gong.  A singing roar, like a metal bellow, sprang into the clear, unresisting air, leaped and echoed, kissed the crags of the Bijou and recoiled again, sending a shiver of sound and vibration through snow-laden trees, on, till the echoes sighed into silence.  Crossman’s over-sensitive ear clung to the last burring whisper as it answered, going north, north, to the House of Silence, drawn there by the magnet of Silence, as water seeks the sea.  For a moment he had almost forgotten the reason for the smitten clamour, hypnotized by the mystery of sound.  Then he turned, to see Aurore, a distant figure of scarlet and black at the edge of the wood road, shuffling northward on her long snowshoes, northward, as if in pursuit of the sound that had gone before.  She raised a mittened hand to him in ironic salutation.  She seemed to beckon, north—­north—­into the Silence.  Crossman shook himself.  What was this miasma in his heart?  He inhaled the vital air and felt the rush of his blood in answer, realizing the splendour of this beautiful, intensely living world of white and green, of sparkle and prismatic brilliance.  Its elemental power like the urge of the world’s youth.

But Aurore?  His brain still heard the echo of her laugh.  He cursed savagely under his breath, and turned his back upon the Cure, unable to face the scrutiny of those kind, troubled eyes.

“Jakapa will be here presently,” he said over his shoulder.  “That gong carries ten miles if there’s no wind.  One ring, that’s for the Boss; two, call in for the whole gang; three, alarm—­good as a telegraph or the telephone as far as it goes.  Meanwhile, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have a look at the larder.”

Without a doubt, he reasoned, Aurore would have left their mid-day meal ready.  She would not return, he knew, until the guest had gone.  In the little overheated cook-house he found the meal set out.  All was in order.  Then his eye caught a singular decoration fastened to the door, a paper silhouette, blackened with charcoal, the shape of a cassocked priest.  The little cut-out paper doll figure was pinned to the wood by a short, sharp kitchen knife driven viciously deep, and the handle, quivering with the closing of the door, gave the illusion that the hand that had delivered the blow must have only at that instant been withdrawn.