In those coaches it was growing steadily colder.  Men were putting on their overcoats, and women snuggled deeper in their furs.  Over it all, the tops of the black pine-trees moaned and whistled in sounds that seemed filled both with menace and with savage laughter.

In the smoking-compartment of the Pullman sat five men, gathered in a group.  Of these, one was Forsythe, the timber agent; two were traveling men; the fourth a passenger homeward bound from a holiday visit; and the fifth was Father Charles.  The priest’s pale, serious face lit up in surprise or laughter with the others, but his lips had not broken into a story of their own.  He was a little man, dressed in somber black, and there was that about him which told his companions that within his tight-drawn coat of shiny black there were hidden tales which would have gone well with the savage beat of the storm against the lighted windows and the moaning tumult of the pine-trees.

Suddenly Forsythe shivered at a fiercer blast than the others, and said: 

“Father, have you a text that would fit this night—­and the situation?”

Slowly Father Charles blew out a spiral of smoke from between his lips, and then he drew himself erect and leaned a little forward, with the cigar between his slender white fingers.

“I had a text for this night,” he said, “but I have none now, gentlemen.  I was to have married a couple a hundred miles down the line.  The guests have assembled.  They are ready, but I am not there.  The wedding will not be to-night, and so my text is gone.  But there comes another to my mind which fits this situation—­and a thousand others—­’He who sits in the heavens shall look down and decide.’  To-night I was to have married these young people.  Three hours ago I never dreamed of doubting that I should be on hand at the appointed hour.  But I shall not marry them.  Fate has enjoined a hand.  The Supreme Arbiter says ‘No,’ and what may not be the consequences’?”

“They will probably be married to-morrow,” said one of the traveling men.  “There will be a few hours’ delay—­nothing more.”

“Perhaps,” replied Father Charles, as quietly as before.  “And—­perhaps not.  Who can say what this little incident may not mean in the lives of that young man and that young woman—­and, it may be, in my own?  Three or four hours lost in a storm—­what may they not mean to more than one human heart on this train?  The Supreme Arbiter plays His hand, if you wish to call it that, with reason and intent.  To someone, somewhere, the most insignificant occurrence may mean life or death.  And to-night—­this—­means something.”

A sudden blast drove the night screeching over our heads, and the whining of the pines was almost like human voices.  Forsythe sucked a cigar that had gone out.