"Dear old friend, you'll give me a little time?... Until to-night?"
"Until to-night," he repeated.
At nightfall they made a camp down on the gravel of the river bank just a short distance below the mouth of the Kentucky river. It was the last night, and each of them was thinking of it. There was a feeling of great sadness in the heart of Jean François, for he realized very surely that he must now renounce the chiefest joy of his life for the sake of the love he bore his friends. He reflected that such things had been done before by better men than he, and he dismissed the self-pity as beneath him.
Nance sat and watched the old Ohio. There is an extraordinary beauty about the river with the coming of the night. The sun goes down behind the hills slowly, as if sorrowful at leaving the silent waters. The great river glistens in a thousand peaceful shades that play at hide-and-seek among the ripples. When the west had ceased to wear the crimson mantle of her lord the water becomes a lucid green. Then, as twilight comes, the stream grows a somber gray, and more silent still, as the stars climb into the sky. The lights begin to appear in the windows of the homes among the trees and wink, solemn beacons by friendly hearths. The rumble of the paddle of a distant steamboat may be heard in melancholy cadence on the summer breezes. Finally the moon, as if uncertain of the way, comes peeping through the willows and casts her wake across the water.
The night had come.
Jean François came and sat beside her.
"Well, Nance?" said he.
"You asked me, my dear Jean François, what I would do were I Monsieur l'Abbé Picot and heard the call of Pan?"
"Yes."