Mère Lunde had to give the young wife a warm welcome. The tears of joy filled her faded eyes.
Renée lay on the settle, sobbing. Wawataysee bent over and would have taken her hand.
“Go away! go away!” she cried imperiously. “I do not want you. You have him to be glad with and I have no one, no one!”
The pathos of the tone was heartrending.
“Renée, my little dear, François is so glad.”
“Go away!” She turned her face to the wall and slapped impatiently with her hand. “I will not listen. The Indians have Uncle Gaspard, I know.”
Mère Lunde beckoned them. “She is very wilful at times, and now her heart is sore. But the good saints have led you both back. He has been north many a time and come home unharmed.”
“They will kill him this time!” the child almost shrieked. “There was that fierce Black Feather! Oh, he will never come back, never!”
The old woman waved them to the doorway and they turned and passed out. All the garden was abloom and sweet with the fragrance of growing fruit, tangled vines and flowers. The pale heavens had lost the light of day, and the blue of the night was hidden by a soft gray vagueness. Birds were singing good-night songs to each other and to sleepy nestlings. Marchand, with his arm around his wife, drew her into a secluded spot.
“Black Feather was a Huron,” he said, “mean, tricky, avaricious. Surely you were not in his hands?” and his grasp tightened.