“It is thou,” she whispered.
He kissed her hair, her eyes, her lips. “Now I know thou dost love me, and thou shalt understand one day how I value thy love. We must part, my beloved, but I will come again. In the mean time be thou patient and constant.”
One last embrace and he was gone, leaving Alaine with a miserable sort of happiness. It seemed as if her heart would burst with this new-born love and with the memory of the parting. All these weeks, day by day, this flower of love had been growing and she was scarcely aware of it; now it had burst into bloom, and she was bewildered and faint with its sweetness. She threw herself down on the hay and pressed her hands over her burning eyes.
She was aroused by a sudden stealthy sound. She lifted her head slightly and peeped between the spears of hay to see the sinuous form of an Indian skulking past the barn. With almost as secret a movement she crept to a point where she could watch his further actions. There was Michelle busy in the fields husking corn; the house was left for occupancy to François Dupont. Was this known to the red-skin? Was it François whom he sought? She watched him make his way to the house and insinuate his lithe body in at the door. “He may be simply one of the friendly creatures come with a message or to get work in the fields,” she thought; “but no, he would not have then approached in this stealthy way.”
At last she determined to busy herself openly in the garden, where there were still more beans to be gathered and where Michelle, in the field beyond, could see her. She was hard at work pulling the rattling pods when suddenly by her side appeared the Indian. She had been furtively watching, but had not seen him leave the house, and his appearance startled her. He paused only long enough to slip a paper into her hand, and then, gliding along by the fence, was lost in the woods beyond.
Wonderingly Alaine unfolded the paper. On it was written, “If you would say farewell, meet me to-morrow at sunset at the cave where is the old fireplace. The ship will be ready.—Pierre.”
Alaine held the paper in her shaking hand. To leave now with Lendert’s love warming her heart; with this new hope beautifying her life! She gazed with staring eyes at the words. “Oh, my father, my father!” she moaned. “But you said, Pierre, it would do no good, that they would not accept me in his stead.” She stood very still with the paper clinched in her hand. “Perhaps,” she thought, after reflection, “he means that he goes himself to see what can be done. The good, noble Pierre. I will meet him; I will give him every sou I have saved. I will bless you, my good Pierre, but I cannot reward you as I said I would. No, Lendert, I cannot, I cannot, even though my father bade me. I must be honest and tell Pierre that. But oh, my father, who will then deliver you?” She fell on her knees and sobbed out the words.
Michelle, beyond in the cornfield, saw her. “Something disturbs my little one,” she said to herself. “There are human wolves to be kept from my lamb. As soon as Louis returns that one in there must go. I can see that my little one fears him; I will not have it so.” She raised her basket of yellow corn and bore it toward the barn, taking care to pass Alaine on the way. “Tears in your eyes, my pretty one,” she said, putting down her basket. “What is this?”
“I was thinking of my father,” faltered Alaine, and going to Michelle she put her arms around her. “Dear mother, comfort me; it is a wide world and there is much trouble in it.”
“And much goodness.”