"Your wife came strangely near my heart. You are giving her a hard life. You will be patient with her, monsieur?"
I bowed, for I did not wish to answer. Mine was a real marriage to Father Nouvel. I thought of the look in the priest's eyes as he made us man and wife, and of the voices of the Indian women as they chanted of life and marriage, and I shut my teeth on a sudden feeling of bitterness. A man may be counted rich yet know himself to be a pauper. I never saw Father Nouvel again. If he were living now I would go far to meet him.
It was a long day's travel back to Sturgeon Cove, and night had fallen before we wound our passage around the curves of the bay and saw the clear eye of the evening fire burning steadily on the shore. Our double trip had taken eleven days, and for me the time had lagged. I had carried an unreasoning weight of oppression, and the shout that I gave at sight of the black figures around the blaze was an outburst of relief.
My company flung themselves at the shore, and all talked at once.
"For three days we have watched," Singing Arrow scolded.
The woman stood near, and I went to her. "Have you watched for three days?" I asked, with my lips on her hand.
"Yes," she said, and then I felt ashamed, for her eyes looked worn and troubled.
"Forgive me, madame," I murmured, though I scarcely knew for what, and
I felt embarrassed and without words.
"I will stay here to-morrow," I said stupidly, and when she said that she was glad, it did not seem to me that she meant it. I saw her no more that night.
But with the fresh morning I forgot all chill. We lingered over a breakfast of broiled bass, and the woman showed me a canoe that Simon had made for her. Simon was the deft-fingered member of my crew, and he had fashioned a fairy craft. I saw that it would carry two, and I said to the woman that we would take it, and have a day of idleness together. I feared she might demur, but she did not. Indeed, she suddenly laughed out like a child without much reason, and there was that in the sound that satisfied me, until I swore at the men and their blundering to keep down my own joy.