She looked up with so pale a face, so hopeless, so mournfully tender, it was affecting to behold.
“I will go under the falls, and there sleep—oh! so long will I sleep, John Bonyton. The wounded doe seeks the deepest covert in which to die.”
She turned away, but the sagamore, rushing forward, folded her in his arms, saying:
“You must not leave me, Hope; do you not love me?”
She answered by a low wail, more eloquent than words, and it was long before her sobs allowed her utterance. At length, she looked up with a wistful, earnest gaze, and answered:
“I see it all now, John Bonyton. I see that Hope is a child, you are man. Hear me say it all—I am a child such as I was years ago; you are not the John Bonyton who played with pebbles upon the beach. Look at the eagle-plume! Look at the eye so dark and terrible! My heart, my brain, has been filled with but one thought, and that is John Bonyton. Look into my soul, it has but one record—only one record—John Bonyton; but you—you are great, powerful, beautiful. Hope is nothing—nothing!”
Her voice was lost in tears, and if the strong man felt the truth of what she said, he was not the less tender, nor the less fervent in his protestations of unchanged and unchanging love.