"Murdo MacFarlane," cried Brent, "Why, that's the name in the book that told of Hearne's lost mines—the book that brought me over here!"
"And the name on the knife—see, I have it here!" exclaimed the girl. "But, go on! Who was MacFarlane, and what has he to do with me?"
Eagerly Brent read aloud the closely written pages, that told of the life of Murdo MacFarlane; of his boyhood in Scotland, of his journey to Canada, his service with the Hudson's Bay Company, his courtship of Margot Molaire, and their marriage to the accompaniment of the booming of the bells of Ste. Anne's, of the birth of their baby—the little Margot, of his restless longing for gold, that his wife and baby need not live out their lives in the outlands, of the visit of Wananebish and her little band of Dog Ribs, of his venture into the barrens, accompanied by his wife and little baby, of the cabin beside the nameless lake and the year of fruitless search for gold in the barrens.
"Oh, that is it! That is it! The memory!" cried the girl.
"What do you mean? What memory?"
"Always I have had it—the memory. Time and time again it comes back to me—but I can never seem to grasp it. A cabin, a beautiful woman who leaned over me, and talked to me, and a big man who took me up in his arms, a lake beside the cabin, and—that is all. Dim and elusive, always, I have tried for hours at a time to bring it sharply into mind, but it was no use—the memory would fade, and in its place would be the tepee, or my little room at the mission. But, go on! What became of Murdo MacFarlane, and Margot—of my father and my mother. And why have I always lived with Wananebish?"
Brent read the closing lines with many a pause, and with many a catch in his voice—the lines which told of the death of Margot, and of his determination to take the baby and leave her with Wananebish until he should return to her, of his leaving with the squaw all of his money—five hundred pounds in good bank notes, with instructions to use it for her keep and education in case he did not return. And so he came to the concluding paragraph which read:
"In the morning I shall carry my wee Margot to the Indian woman. It is the only thing I can do. And then I shall strike North for gold. But first I must return to this cabin and bury my dead. God! Why did she have to die? She should be buried
beside her mother in the little graveyard at Ste. Anne's. But it cannot be. Upon a high point that juts out onto the lake, I will dig her grave—upon a point where we used often to go and watch the sunset, she and I and the little one. And there she will lie, while far below her the booming and the thunder of the wind-lashed waters of the lake will rise about her like the sound of bells—her requiem—like the tolling of the bells of Ste. Anne's."
"Oh, where is he now—my father?" sobbed the girl, as he concluded.