"You have left out the 'free,'" but he knew well why she could not utter it.
"Monsieur, I think you would be noble enough to give your life for a friend"—she was about to say "whom you loved," but she caught her voice in time.
Was this heroic maiden the little girl who had run wild in the old town, and sung songs with the birds; who had been merry and careless, but always a sweet human Rose; the child he had taken to his heart long ago, the girl he had watched over, the woman—yes, the woman he loved with a man's first fervent passion! She should not go out of his life, now that God had made a space for her to come in it. Miladi he had given up to Laurent Giffard, she had never belonged to him in the deep sacredness of love. And as he watched her, his eyes seeming to look into her soul, through the motes of light that illumined them, he knew it was not simply that she had no love for the Indian, but that she loved him. It seemed the sublime moment of his life, the sweetest consciousness that he had ever known.
"You gave something greater than life. Listen," and he drew his brows into a resolute line. "When that man comes we will have it out between us. For I love you, too. I owe you a great reward that only a life's devotion can pay. I am much older, but I seem to have just awakened to the dream of bliss that sanctifies manhood. My darling, if a better man came, I could give you up, if I went hungering all the rest of my days. But you shall not go to certain wretchedness. And he must see the truth. That is the way a man should love."
Her slender, white throat rose and fell like a heartbeat. With Savignon she would be loved with a fierce passion, for the man's supreme joy; this man would love for the woman's joy.
"Monsieur, I have studied the subject, and I think it is right. I pray you, do not disturb my resolve. It has been made after many prayers. If the good Father should change His mind—but that is hardly to be thought of. Do not let us talk about it," and she rose.
For instead of throwing herself in the river, as she had thought in her wildness, she could cross to France, and enter a convent, if she could not endure it.
Ralph Destournier saw that argument was useless. When the time came, he would act.
But May passed without bringing the lover. Quebec was beginning to take courage, and what with hunting and fishing, semi-starvation was at an end. Emigrants came back and all was stir and activity in the little town.
There came a letter to Rose, after a long delay. Savignon had joined a party of explorers, who were pushing westward, and marvelled at the wonderful country. He had pondered much over his desires, and while his love was still strong, he did not want an unwilling bride. He would give her a longer time to consider—a year, perhaps. He had wrung a reluctant assent from her, he admitted, and taken an ungenerous advantage. For this he would do a year's penance, without sight of the face that had so charmed him.