He stopped, knowing that the cloud of unrest which was almost fear in his heart was driving him to say these things.

“What, father,” questioned Nada, bending toward him.

“I was about to express a thought which suggests an almost childish curiosity, and you will laugh at me, my dear.  I am wondering if it has occurred to Roger the mysterious ’Country Beyond’ of which Yellow Bird dreamed might be the great country down there—­south—­beyond the Border—­the United States?”

Something which he could not control seemed to drive the words from his lips, and in an instant he saw that Nada had seized upon their significance.  Her eyes widened.  The blue in them grew darker, and Roger observed her fingers grip suddenly in the softness of her dress as she turned from Father John to look at him.

“Or—­it might be China, or Africa, or the South Seas,” he tried to laugh, remembering his old visions.  “It might be—­anywhere.”

Nada’s lips trembled, as if she were about to speak; and then very quietly she sat, with her hands tightly clasped in her lap, and Father John knew she was not expressing the thought in her heart when she said,

“Someday I want to tell Yellow Bird how much I love her.”

Now in these hours since he and his master had come to the Burntwood it seemed to Peter that he had lost something very great, for in his happiness McKay had taken but scant notice of him, and Nada seemed to have found a greater joy than that which a long time ago she had found in his comradeship.  So now, as she saw him lying in his loneliness a short distance away, Nada suddenly ran to him, and together they went into the thick screen of the balsams, Peter yipping joyously, and Nada without so much as turning her head in the direction of Roger and Father John.  But even in that bird-like swiftness with which she had left them, Father John had caught the look in her eyes.

“I have made a mistake,” he confessed humbly.  “I have sinned, because in her I have roused the temptation to urge you to fly away with her—­down there—­south.  She is a woman, and being a woman she has infinite faith in Yellow Bird, for Yellow Bird helped to give you to her.  She believes—­”

“And I—­I—­also believe,” said McKay, staring at the green balsams.

“And yet—­it is better for you to remain.  God means that judgment and happiness should come in their turn.”

Jolly Roger rose to his feet, facing the south.

“It is a temptation, father.  It would be hard to give her up—­now.  If Breault would only wait a little while.  But if he comes—­now—­”

He walked away slowly, following through the balsams where Nada and Peter had gone.  Father John watched him go, and a trembling smile came to his lips when he was alone.  In his heart he knew he was a coward, and that these young people had been stronger than he.  For in their happiness and the faith which he had falsely built up in them they had resigned themselves to the inevitable, while he, in these moments of cowardice, had shown them the way to temptation.  And yet as he stood there, looking in the direction they had gone, he felt no remorse because of what he had done, and a weight seemed to have lifted itself from his shoulders.