Then, suddenly, he came
upon the cabin, and in the cabin there was a light!
Gently he laid Kazan down upon the snow, and for a full minute he
stood and listened, and heard, lower and sweeter still, the gentle
music, of the violin. Some one was in his cabin--living hands were
playing! After all it was not the spirit of Melisse that had come to
him in the hour of his deepest grief, and a sob rose in his throat. He
went on, step by step, and at the door he stopped again, wondering if
he was mad, if the spirits of the forest were taunting him still, if--
if--
One step more--
The Great God, he heard it now--the low, sweet music of the old Cree
love song, played in the old, old way, with all of its old sadness,
its whispering joy, its weeping song of life, of death, of love! With
a great cry he flung open the door and leaped in, with his arms
reaching out, his eyes blinded for a moment by the sudden light--and
with a cry as piercing as his own, something ran through that light to
meet him--Melisse, the old, glorious Melisse, crushing her arms about
his neck, sobbing his name, pleading with him in her old, sweet voice
to kiss her, kiss her, kiss her--while Jan Thoreau for the first time
in his life felt sweeping over him a resistless weakness, and in this
vision he knew that Jean de Gravois came to him, too, and held him in
his arms, and that as the light faded away from about him he still
heard Melisse calling to him, felt her arms about him, her face
crushed to his own.
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