"I told you what this north country could do for you," was his exultant slogan; "I told you!" Once David was on the point of telling him that he could see only the tenth part of what it had done for him, but the old shame held his tongue.

He did not want to bring up the old story.

The fact that it had existed, and had written itself out in human passion, remained with him still as a personal and humiliating degradation.

It was like a scar on his own body, a repulsive sore which he wished to keep out of sight, even from the eyes of the man who had been his salvation.

The growth of this revulsion within him had kept pace with his physical improvement, and if at the end of these ten days Father Roland had spoken of the woman who had betrayed him--the woman who had been his wife--he would have turned the key on that subject as decisively as the Missioner had banned further conversation or conjecture about Tavish.