"Say? Say that you'll stand by the thing you swore to one mad day in the West as well as any man that ever lived—'to have and to hold, to love and to cherish from this day forth till death us do part, Amen.'"
Richard's voice was low and full of a strange, searching something.
Frank, wondering at this great affection and fondness of his brother, looked him in the eyes warmly, solemnly, and replied: "For richer or for poorer, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health—so help me God, and her kindness and forgiveness!"
CHAPTER XII
"THE CHASE OF THE YELLOW SWAN"
Frank and Lali did not meet until dinner was announced. The conversation at dinner was mainly upon the return to Greyhope, which was fixed for the following morning, and it was deftly kept gay and superficial by Marion and Richard and Captain Vidall, until General Armour became reminiscent, and held the interest of the table through a dozen little incidents of camp and barrack life until the ladies rose. There had been an engagement for late in the evening, but it had been given up because of Frank's home-coming, and there was to be a family gathering merely— for Captain Vidall was now as much one of the family as Frank or Richard, by virtue of his approaching marriage with Marion. The men left alone, General Armour questioned Frank freely about life in the Hudson's Bay country, and the conversation ran on idly till it was time to join the ladies.
When they reached the drawing-room, Marion was seated at the piano, playing a rhapsody of Raff's, and Mrs. Armour and Lali were seated side by side. Frank thrilled at seeing his wife's hand in his mother's. Marion nodded over the piano at the men, and presently played a snatch of Carmen, then wandered off into the barbaric strength of Tannhauser, and as suddenly again into the ballet music of Faust.
"Why so wilful, my girl?" asked her father, who had a keen taste for music. "Why this tangle? Let us have something definite."
Marion sprang up from the piano. "I can't. I'm not definite myself to-night." Then, turning to Lali: "Lali dear, sing something—do! Sing my favourite, 'The Chase of the Yellow Swan.'"
This was a song which in the later days at Greyhope, Lali had sung for Marion, first in her own language, with the few notes of an Indian chant, and afterwards, by the help of the celebrated musician who had taught her both music and singing, both of which she had learned but slowly, it was translated and set to music. Lali looked Marion steadily in the eyes for a moment and then rose. It cost her something to do this thing, for while she had often talked much and long with Richard about that old life, it now seemed as if she were to sing it to one who would not quite understand why she should sing it at all, or what was her real attitude towards her past—that she looked upon it from the infinite distance of affectionate pity, knowledge, and indescribable change, and yet loved the inspiring atmosphere and mystery of that lonely North, which once in the veins never leaves it—never. Would he understand that she was feeling, not the common detail of the lodge and the camp-fire and the Company's post, but the deep spirit of Nature, filtering through the senses in a thousand ways—the wild ducks' flight, the sweet smell of the balsam, the exquisite gallop of the deer, the powder of the frost, the sun and snow and blue plains of water, the thrilling eternity of plain and the splendid steps of the hills, which led away by stair and entresol to the Kimash Hills, the Hills of the Mighty Men?