"
His fingers caressed the leg just below the knee.
"Father," he suddenly added, "what does it mean when you hear a bird
sing in the middle of the night?"
The woodsman looked down anxiously into the boy's face. "It hasn't no
meaning, Dominique. There ain't such a thing on the Labrador Heights as
a bird singin' in the night. That's only in warm countries where there's
nightingales. So--_bien sur!_"
The boy had a wise, dreamy, speculative look.
"Well, I guess it was a nightingale--it didn't sing like any I ever
heard."
The look of nervousness deepened in the woodman's face. "What did it
sing like, Dominique?"
"So it made you shiver. You wanted it to go on, and yet you didn't want
it. It was pretty, but you felt as if something was going to snap inside
of you."
"When did you hear it, my son?"
"Twice last night--and--and I guess it was Sunday the other time. I
don't know, for there hasn't been no Sunday up here since mother went
away--has there?"
"Mebbe not."
The veins were beating like live cords in the man's throat and at his
temples.
"'Twas just the same as Father Corraine bein' here, when mother had
Sunday, wasn't it?"
The man made no reply; but a gloom drew down his forehead, and his lips
doubled in as though he endured physical pain. He got to his feet and
paced the floor. For weeks he had listened to the same kind of talk from
this wounded, and, as he thought, dying son, and he was getting less and
less able to bear it.
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