Their eyes met.  A fiercer gust of the storm beat against the windows.  They could hear the wind wailing in the trees outside.

“It was your story that you told me,” said Father Roland, his voice barely above a whisper.  “She was your wife, David?”

It was very still for a few moments.  Then came the reply:  “Yes, she was my wife....”

Suddenly David freed his hand from the Little Missioner’s clasp.  He had stopped something that was almost like a cry on his lips.  He pulled his hat still lower over his eyes and went through the door out into the main part of the coach.

Father Roland did not follow.  Some of the ruddiness had gone from his cheeks, and as he stood facing the door through which David had disappeared a smouldering fire began to burn far back in his eyes.  After a few moments this fire died out, and his face was gray and haggard as he sat down again in his corner.  His hands unclenched.  With a great sigh his head drooped forward on his chest, and for a long time he sat thus, his eyes and face lost in shadow.  One would not have known that he was breathing.

CHAPTER II

Half a dozen times that night David had walked from end to end of the five snowbound coaches that made up the Transcontinental.  He believed that for him it was an act of Providence that had delayed the train.  Otherwise a sleeping car would have been picked up at the next divisional point, and he would not have unburdened himself to Father Roland.  They would not have sat up until that late hour in the smoking compartment, and this strange little man of the forest would not have told him the story of a lonely cabin up on the edge of the Barrens—­a story of strange pathos and human tragedy that had, in some mysterious way, unsealed his own lips.  David had kept to himself the shame and heartbreak of his own affliction since the day he had been compelled to tell it, coldly and without visible emotion, to gain his own freedom.  He had meant to keep it to himself always.  And of a sudden it had all come out.  He was not sorry.  He was glad.  He was amazed at the change in himself.  That day had been a terrible day for him.  He could not get her out of his mind.  Now a depressing hand seemed to have lifted itself from his heart.  He was quick to understand.  His story had not fallen upon ears eager with sensual curiosity.  He had met a man, and from the soul of that man there had reached out to him the spirit of a deep and comforting strength.  He would have revolted at compassion, and words of pity would have shamed him.  Father Roland had given voice to neither of these.  But the grip of his hand had been like the grip of an iron man.

In the third coach David sat down in an empty seat.  For the first time in many months there was a thrill of something in his blood which he could not analyze.  What had the Little Missioner meant when, with that wonderful grip of his knotted hand, he had said, “I’ve learned how a man can find himself when he’s down and out”?  And what had he meant when he added, “Will you come with me”?  Go with him?  Where?