The words from Julie's own lips stung Marcel like the lash of a whip, but his face masked his emotion.
Then she went on:
"I wanted to talk to you last summer, for you are my dear friend, but you were here for so short a while and we had but a word when you left." Then the girl burst out impulsively, "Ah, Jean; don't look that way! Won't you ever forgive me? I am—so sorry, Jean. But—you are a boy. It could never be that way. Why, you are as a brother."
Marcel's eyes still rested on the silhouetted hills to the south. He made no answer.
"Won't you forget, Jean, and remain a friend—a brother?"
He turned his sombre eyes to the girl.
"Yes, I shall always be your friend—your brother, Julie," he said. "But I shall always love you—I can't help that. And there is nothing to forgive. I hoped—once—that you might—love Jean Marcel; but now—it is over. God bless you, Julie!"
As he finished, Julie Breton's eyes were wet. Again Marcel gazed long into the south but with unseeing eyes. The girl was the first to break the silence.
"Jean," she said, returning to the charges of the Lelacs, "you must not brood over what the Crees are saying. What matters it that the ignorant Indians, some of whom, if the truth were known, have eaten their own flesh and blood in starvation camps, do not believe you. For shame! You are a brave man, Jean Marcel. Show your courage at Whale River as you have shown it elsewhere."
Sadly Marcel shook his head. "They will speak of me now, from Fort George to Mistassini, as the man who killed his partners." And in spite of Julie Breton's words of cheer he refused to see his case in any other light.