As Julie drew on her hood preparatory to departure, Winslow inquired of her how it fared with the women, remarking that she herself seemed to bear her fate with much cheer.
“For the others—well, while many lament, all do not. For myself I care not. I weary of the French rule and the fighting and wandering and the savage Indians. Anywhere I go willingly where there is peace, and the soil is fruitful—v’ là tout!”
So she went; and the early sun was glistening on meadows yet dewy when Gabriel, forgetful for the moment of the sorrows around him and his own distasteful duties, strode along the same dusty road he had traversed the previous day, arriving in the course of an hour or so at the small hut inhabited by the Marins. Julie, hastening forth to milk, greeted him with a broad smile, and waved to him to enter.
Enter he did, and in a second, neither knew how, he held Margot close to his heart.
It was long before a word was spoken. It was enough that they were together; and when at length Gabriel found voice, it was at first only for expressions of pity and endearment for the frail little creature who seemed lost within his large embrace.
“They sat down side by side . . . before the empty hearth.”
“But I am not so frail, mon cousin,” she protested. “I can work and endure, ah, thou knowest not how much!”
“But never again, chérie!” was Gabriel’s reply; and grown strangely and suddenly bold, he added: “and remember, it must be ‘mon cousin’ no longer, for from this very day there shall be an end of ‘cousin’—it will be ‘wife’ and ‘husband.’ Hearest thou?”