Again he spoke.
“I hope you will be happy with Snoqualmie, and—”
She lifted her eyes with a sudden light flashing in their black depths.
“Do you want me to hate him? Never speak his name to me again!”
“He is to be your husband; nay, it is the wish of your father, and the great sachems approve it.”
“Can the sachems put love in my heart? Can the sachems make my heart receive him as its lord? Ah, this bitter custom of the father giving his daughter to whomsoever he will, as if she were a dog! And your lips sanction it!”
Her eyes were full of tears. Scarcely realizing what he did, he tried to take her hand. The slender fingers shrank from his and were drawn away.
“I do not sanction it, it is a bitter custom; but it is to be, and I only wished to smooth your pathway. I want to say or do something that will help you when I am gone.”
“Do you know what it would be for me to be an Indian’s wife? To cut the wood, and carry the water, and prepare the food,—that would be sweet to do for one I loved. But to toil amid dirt and filth for a savage whom I could only abhor, to feel myself growing coarse and squalid with my surroundings,—I could not live!”