The snow lay upon his breast in delicate, ruffling drifts; above him circled a hawk with ominous, flapping wings; around, far as eye could reach, stretched the interminable forest. Utter solitude! Complete isolation from humankind! Yet from that solitary figure stretched threads of destiny which should be found twisted close about the heartstrings of many fellow-beings.
With a shock Brent recognized in the prostrate form the Jesuit priest whom he had left at St. Gabriel's but two days since, the same man against whose too constant visits he had found it necessary to caution his sister; and now to meet him thus!
He rushed toward the body and knelt beside it. Tearing away cloak and cassock and hair-shirt under all, he leaned his ear above the heart. For a full minute he listened.
"He is dead," he said at last, "and must have been dead for hours."
"You know him?"
"Ay, he is one of the Fathers at St. Inigo's. He was staying with my sister Mary at St. Gabriel's, and probably had started on the journey back to the Hill when this overtook him;" and Brent began rapidly to repeat a prayer for the dead.
Huntoon stood by in silence with bowed head. When Brent had finished Huntoon said,—
"Did he—was death natural?"
Brent shook his head gloomily. "Look," he said; and as Huntoon stooped, he drew aside the shirt and showed a wound on the left side above the fifth rib. The clothing below it was dark and stiff with blood. No words were needed to tell the tale.