“I’d say few of us do—­when we let our feelings go.”  Father Adam smiled back into the eyes which seemed to hold him fascinated.  “You see, Laval’s much what we all are.  He’s got a tough job to put through, and he does his utmost.  He’s a big man, a brave man, a—­yes, perhaps—­a harsh man.  But he couldn’t do his job as he’s paid to do it if he weren’t all those things.”  He shook his head.  “No, I guess we can’t play with fire long without getting a heap of scars.”  He shrugged.  “But after all I suppose it’s just—­life.  We’ve got to eat, and we want to live.  We don’t need to judge too harshly.”

“No.  That’s how I feel about the boys—­he so condemned.”

The girl turned away gazing pensively over the forest.  Father Adam was free to regard her without restraint.  With her turning the whole expression of his eyes had changed.  Incredulous amazement had replaced his smiling ease.

“Would you care to come along through the woods to my shanty, Miss McDonald?” he said, almost diffidently, at last.  “Maybe I’ve a cup of coffee there.  And I’d say coffee’s the most welcome thing on earth in these forests.  It’s a pretty humble shanty but, if you feel like talking things, why, I guess we can sit around there awhile.”

The girl snatched at the invitation.

“I was just hoping you’d say something that way,” she laughed readily.  “I’d give worlds for a cup of coffee, and I guess the folks in the forests of Quebec know more about coffee in half a second than we city folk know in a year.  Which way?”

“It’s only a few yards.  You’d best follow me.”

* * * * *

The girl stood amazed.  She was even horrified.  She was gazing in through the opening of the merest shelter, a shelter built of green boughs with roof and sides of interlaced foliage.  True it was densely interlaced, but no sort of distorted imagination could have translated the result into anything but a shelter.  Habitation was out of the question.  She stared at the primitive, less than aboriginal home, of the priestly man.  She stared round her at the undergrowth upon which were spread his brown coarse blankets airing.  She looked down at the smouldering fire between two granite stones upon which a tin of coffee was simmering and emitting its pleasant aroma upon the woodland air.  It was too crude, too utterly lacking in comfort and even the bare necessites of existence.

The man emerged from the interior bearing two enamelled tin cups.  He realised the amazement with which Nancy was regarding his home, and shook his head with a pleasant laugh as he indicated two upturned boxes beside the fire.

“You’d best sit, and I’ll tell you about it,” he said.  “It’s not exactly a swell hotel, is it?  But it’s sufficient.”

The girl silently took her seat on one of the boxes.  Father Adam took the other.  Then he poured out two cups of coffee, and passed a tin of preserved milk across to the girl.  There was a spoon in it.  After that he produced a small tin of sugar and offered that.