"Julie, what has been worrying you? Don't let what I did cause you pain," he pleaded, not catching the significance of her words. "It's all right, Julie. You owe me nothing—I understand."
"Ah, but you do not understand," she said, smiling at the man's averted face.
"Julie, I have suffered, but I want you to be happy. Don't think of Jean Marcel."
"But it is of Jean Marcel of the great heart that I must think—have been thinking, for days and days." She was sitting erect, tense; her pale face drawn with emotion.
"I tell you I know it all," she cried, "how they—he, feared to start in the storm—and waited—ordered you to wait. But no wind or snow could hold Jean Marcel, and in spite of them, he brought Dr. Hunter to Whale River—and saved Julie Breton."
Dumb with surprise at her knowledge of what he thought he and Hunter alone knew—at the scorn in her voice, Marcel listened with pounding heart.
"Yes, they told me," she went on, "how Jean Marcel heard the news when he reached Whale River and, without sleep, that night hurried south for help, swifter than men had ever travelled, because Julie Breton was in peril. Dr. Hunter has told me all; how you and Fleur fought wind and snow to bring him to Whale River—and Julie Breton. And now you ask her not to thank you—you who gave her back her life."
Only the low sobbing of the girl broke the silence. In a moment the paroxysm passed, and she looked through tears at the man who sat with bowed head in hands, as she faltered:
"Ah, will you not see—not understand? Must I tell you—that I—love—Jean Marcel?"
Dazed, Jean rose. With a hoarse cry of "Julie!" he groped to the bed and took her in his yearning arms.