Crossman turned on his heel and entered the office-building.  Through the south window he saw Jakapa snowshoeing swiftly up the short incline to the door; beside him walked the Cure, pleading and anxious.  He could follow the words as his lips framed them.  In the present mood Crossman did not wish to hear the Cure’s denunciation.  It was sufficient to see that the Foreman had, evidently, no intention of acting on the advice proffered.

As he softly closed the door between the main office and the living room at the rear, he heard the men enter on a quick word of reproof in the Cure’s rich bass.

“She does her work sufficiently well, and I shall not order her from the camp,” Jakapa snapped in reply.  “She is with Marceau; if he keeps her in hand, what do I care?  She leave him, that his affair, mon Dieu, mon pere.”

“She has bewitched you, too, Jakapa.  She has bewitched that other, the young man who is here for the healing of his soul.  What an irony, to heal his soul, and she comes to poison it!”

“Heal his soul?” Jakapa laughed harshly.  “He’s had the weak lung, shell-shock, and he’s a friend of the owner. Mon pere, if he is here for the good of his soul, that is your province—­but me?—­I am here to boss one job, and I boss him, that’s all.  I hope only you have not driven the cook away, or the pot-au-feu, she will be thin.”  He tried to speak the latter part of his sentence lightly, but his voice betrayed his irritation.

Crossman opened the door and entered.  “Antoine will be here in a minute,” he announced.  “Aurore sent him back to feed the animals.”  He took down the enamelled tin dishes and cups and set their places.  Jakapa eyed him covertly, with a half-sneering venom he had never before shown.

It was a silent meal.  The Cure sighed and shook his head at intervals, and the Boss grumbled a few comments in answer to an occasional question concerning his lumberjacks.  Crossman sat in a dream.  Could he have understood aright when Antoine had spoken of the dawn?

Jakapa dropped a plate with a curse and a clatter.  The sudden sound ripped the sick man’s nerves like an exploding bomb.  White to the lips, he jumped from his chair to meet the Boss’s sneering eyes.  The Cure laid a gentle hand on his arm, and he settled back shamefacedly.

“Your pardon, mon pere—­my nerves are on edge—­excuse me—­an inheritance of the trenches.”

“Emotion is bad for you, my son, and you should not emotion yourself,” said the Priest gently.

“Do you travel far when you leave us now?” Crossman asked self-consciously, anxious to change the subject.

“To the camp at the Chaumiere Noire, a matter of ten kilometres.  It is no hardship, my rounds, not at all, with the ground like a white tablecloth, and this good sun, to me like to my dogs, it is but play.”  He rose from the table, glad of the excuse to hasten his going, and with scant courtesy Jakapa sped his guest’s departure.