I looked at her panic and shook my head.
"Why do you fear to love me, to yield to me? You are my wife."
"I told you. I told you the day—the last day that we were together in the woods. It would be a tragedy if we loved, monsieur."
"But you are my wife."
She looked at me. The light from the window fell full in her great eyes, and they were the eyes of the boy who had looked up at me in that very room; the boy who had captured me, against my reason, by his spirit and will, I felt the same challenge now.
"I am your wife, yes," she was saying slowly. "That is, the priest said some words over us that we both denied in our hearts. I cannot look at marriage in that way, monsieur. No priest, no ritual can make a marriage if the right thing is not there. The fact that you gave me your name to shield me does not give me a claim on you in my mind. Wait. Let me say more. You have great plans, great opportunity. You will make a great leader, monsieur."
Her words sounded mockery. "Thank you, madame." I knew my tone was bitter.
She looked at me reproachfully. "Monsieur, you are unkind. I meant what I said. I heard you in the council yesterday. I asked to go in that I might hear you. I know something of what you have done this summer. I know how you fended away massacre the other night. This is a crucial time, and you are the only man who can handle the situation; the only man who has influence to lead the united tribes. Your opportunity is wonderful. You are making history. You may be changing the map of nations, you—alone here—working with a few Indians. Believe me, I see it all. It is wonderful, monsieur."
"But what has this to do with you and me?"
"Just this, monsieur. I cannot forget my blood. I am an Englishwoman. I come of a family that has chosen exile rather than yield a point of honor that involved the crown. I have been bred to that idea of country, nurtured on it. Could I stay with you and see you work against my people? If I were a different sort of woman; if I were the gentle girl that you should marry,—one who knew no life but flattery and courts, like the lady of the miniature,—why, then it might be possible for me to think of you only in relation to myself, and to forget all that you stood for. But I am—what I am. I have known tragedy and suffering. I cannot blind myself with dreams as a girl might, and I understand fully the significance of what you are doing. We should have a divided hearth, monsieur."