before, he told Philip.  The little daughter of the factor at Nelson House had been stolen, and held for ransom.  With a hundred questions he wrung from Philip every detail of the second fight and of the struggle for life in the rapids.  He betrayed no physical excitement, even in those moments of Philip’s description when Jeanne hung between life and death; but in his eyes there was the glow of red-hot fires.  At last there came to interrupt them the low, musical tinkling of a bell under the table.

D’Arcambal’s face lighted up suddenly.

“Ah, I had forgotten,” he exclaimed.  “Pardon me, Philip.  Dinner has been awaiting us this last half-hour; and besides—­”

He reached out and touched a tiny button, which Philip had not observed before.

“I am selfish.”

He had hardly ceased speaking when footsteps sounded in the hall, and in spite of every resolution he had made to guard himself against any betrayal of the emotions burning in his breast, Philip sprang to his feet.  Jeanne had come in under the glow of the lamps and stood now a dozen feet from him, a vision so exquisitely lovely that he saw nothing of those who entered behind her, nor heard D’Arcambal’s low, happy laugh at his side.  It seemed to him for a moment as if there had suddenly appeared before him the face of the picture that was turned against the wall, only more beautiful now, radiant with the glow of living flesh and blood.  But there was something even more startling than this resemblance.  In this moment Jeanne was the fulfilment of his dream; she had come to him from out of another world.  She was dressed in an old-fashioned gown of pure white, a fabric so delicate that it seemed to float about her slender form, responsive to every breath she drew.  Her white shoulders revealed themselves above masses of filmy lace that fell upon her bosom; her slender arms, girlish rather than womanly in their beauty, were bare.  Her hair was bound up in shining coils about her head, with a single flower nestling amid a little cluster of curls that fell upon her neck.  After his first movement, Philip recovered himself by a strong effort.  He bowed low to conceal the flush in his face.  Jeanne swept him a little courtesy, and then ran past him, with the eagerness of any modern child, into the outstretched arms of her father.

Laughter and joy rumbled in the beard of the master of Fort o’ God as he looked over Jeanne’s head at Philip.

“And this is what you have saved for me,” he said.

Then he looked beyond, and for the first time Philip realized there were others in the room.  One was Pierre; the other a pretty, dark-faced girl, with hair that glistened like a raven’s wing in the lamp-glow.

Jeanne left her father’s arms and gave her hand to Philip.

“M’sieur Philip, this is my sister, Mademoiselle Couchee,” she cried.

Pierre’s sister gave Philip her hand, and behind them D’Arcambal laughed softly in his beard again, and said: