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A moment later Philip knew that it was Adare who had passed his door. He dressed and shaved himself before he left his room. He found Adare in his study. Metoosin already had a fire burning, and Adare was standing before this alone, when Philip entered. Something was lacking in Adare's greeting this morning. There was an uneasy, searching look in his eyes as he looked at Philip.
Adare's face clouded. "I am not a pessimist," he answered, after a moment. "It has been one of my few Commandments always to look for the bright spot, if there is one. But, down there, I have seen so many wolves, human wolves. It seems strange to me that so many people should have the same mad desire for the dollar that the wolves of the forest have for warm, red, quivering flesh.
This morning her cheeks and lips were red, her eyes were bright, she laughed she was the old Miriam. And now! Can you tell me what it means? Is it some terrible malady which the doctors could not find?" "No, it is not that," Philip felt his heart beat a little faster. Josephine had fallen a step behind her mother. She had heard Adare's words, and at Philip she flung back a swift, frightened look.
"You're sure it's a boy?" he asked anxiously. "Quite sure," replied Philip. "We've named him John." The master of the Adare House leaned over the bed again. Philip heard him mumbling softly in his thick beard, and very cautiously he touched the end of a big forefinger to one of the baby's tiny fists. The little fingers opened, and then they closed tightly about John Adare's thumb.
"It it is the baby," gasped Josephine, backing from the light to hide the wild rush of blood to her face. "Philip cannot sleep," she finished desperately. "Then I disapprove of his nerves," rejoined her father. "Good-night, Philip, my boy!" "Good-night!" said Philip. He was looking at Adare's wife as they moved away.
"It must have been the baby," comforted Philip, placing a hand on Adare's arm. "We can stand it, Mon Pere. We are men. With them it is different. We must bear up under our grief. It is necessary for us to have strength for them as well as ourselves." "Do you think it is that?" cried Adare with sudden eagerness. "If it is, I am ashamed of myself, Philip!
"I understand," said Adare almost roughly, in his struggle to steady himself. "You're thinking of ME, Boy. God bless you for that. You go to Josephine and Miriam. It is your place. Jean and I will go into the big room." Philip left them at Adare's room and went to his own, leaving the door open that he might hear Josephine if she came out into the hall.
She was barefoot, and made no sound as she advanced. Philip drew himself back closer against the wall. He was sure she had not seen him. A moment later Miriam turned into the corridor that led into Adare's big room. Philip felt that he was trembling. In Miriam's face he had seen something that had made his heart beat faster.
Over the door through which they had just come hung a huge, old-fashioned flint-lock six feet in length. There was something like the snarl of an animal in John Adare's voice when he spoke again. "That's the tool of the Northland," he said. "That is the only tool John the Trapper knows, all he can know in a land where even trees are stunted and there are no plows.
The master of Adare House had drawn her to him again. She put out a hand, and it rested on Philip's shoulder. Her eyes turned directly to him, and he alone saw the swift ebbing of the joyous light from them. John Adare's voice rumbled happily, and with his grizzled face bowed in Josephine's hair he said: "I guess I'm not sorry but glad, Mignonne." He looked at Philip again.
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