“She belongs to the kind that does seen things,” answered the trapper.  “But whether ye can call her dyin’ miserable, I sartinly doubt; for there be some that can’t die miserable owin’ to their feelin’s.  And I’ve noted that them who die feelin’ a sartin way die happy whenever they die; for death means one thing to one and another thing to another; and the heart that has lost all, is happy to go in sarch of it, even ef it be along the trail that the sun never shines on.”

And so the two men sat and talked, feeding the camp fire with sticks occasionally as they talked.  They wondered who the man was and whence he came, wondered if he would change his views and if the girl could win him over to a rational way of looking at the deed that had been done and the true way to atone for it; wondered if they could not assist her in her loving task when the morning came; talked and wondered and planned, and at last, wrapping their blankets around them, they laid down to sleep.  The last words spoken were by the Trapper, and were these: 

“We will go over in the mornin’, Herbert, and help the girl.”

And then they slept.

* * * * *

Beyond the balsam thicket, by another camp fire, the girl and the man sat talking, talking of the deed that had been done and the atonement demanded, and of the great future beyond this present life; the future that stretches away endlessly, the future of peace to some, perhaps to all, who knows?  For there be some who think that this life has in it such forces of education, such enlightenment to the understanding, such quickening to the conscience, such ripening of character; and that through its experiences, its trials, and its griefs, come such graces to the souls of those that leave it, that when they pass they leave their worse self behind them, even as the germ leaves the shuck out of which it sprouted,—­leaves the dull, clamp ground forever while it groweth up into the sunlight in which it finds perfection.

“Mary,” said the man, “I have done with the past.  My mind turns wholly toward the future.  I see it as the shipwrecked sailor sees the land, which, if he can but reach, he will not only be beyond the storm that wrecks him, but beyond all storms forever.  Companion of my joys and companion of my grief,—­companion in everything but in my sin,—­counsel with me, with your eyes turned ahead.  You are innocent and innocence is prophetic.  What lies beyond this world and the life men live in it?  What of good waits for him who gives up this life bravely and penitently, and trusts himself to the decisions and the certainties of the great hereafter?”

“My master,” said the girl, “it is not for me to teach you, you who are so much greater than I, you who have been gifted with faculties and powers that have lifted you above men.  What can I say to you save to repeat what you have said to me?”

“Mary,” he replied, “talk to me from out your heart and not from out your mind.  The prophecies that come to men from Heaven, Heaven has communicated through the emotions of the just and the pure, and not through the perceptions.  Tell me of the faith of your heart, the heart which I know has been free of guile.  Tell me of the great Hereafter and what awaits me there.”