And looking at them, I began to yield to that temptation which had assailed me ceaselessly, both at Quebec and since we left St. Boniface, not to yield up Jacqueline, never to let her go.
Why should I bear the yoke of moral laws here in this wilderness, with our pursuing enemy behind—a day's journey perhaps—but leaving me only a breathing spell, a resting space, before I must fight for Jacqueline? Or when her own had abandoned her?
Jacqueline glided out of the tent and knelt beside me, putting her arms about the dog's neck and her head upon its furry coat. The dogs loved her, and she seemed always to understand their needs.
"Paul, there is something wrong with them," she said, her hand still caressing the mane of the great beast, who looked at her with pathetic eyes.
I had noticed that they did not eat that night, but had imagined that they would do so later when they had recovered from their fatigue.
"What is wrong with them, Jacqueline?" I asked.
She raised her head and looked sadly at me. "It is I, Paul," she answered.
"You, Jacqueline?"
"Yes, it is I!" she cried with sudden, passionate vehemence. "It is I who am wrong and have brought trouble on you. Paul, I do not even know how you came into my life, nor who I am, nor anything that happened to me at any time before you brought me to Quebec, except that my home is there." She pointed northward. "Who am I? Jacqueline, you say. The name means nothing to me. I am a woman without a past or future, a shadow that falls across your life, Paul. And I could perhaps remember, but I know—I know—that I must never remember."
She began weeping wildly. I surmised that she must have been under an intense strain for days. I had not dreamed that this girl who walked by my side and paid me the tribute of her docile faith suffered and knew.