"I love you, Jacqueline!" I cried. "And you—you?"
She thrust her hands out and turned her face away. There was an awful fear upon it. "Paul," she cried, "there is—somebody—who——
"I have known that," she went on in a torrent of wild words. "I have known that always, and it is the most terrible part of all!"
I laid a finger on her lips.
"There is nobody, Jacqueline," I said again, trying to control my trembling voice. "He was another delirium of the night, a fantom of your illness, dear. There was never anybody but me, and there shall never be. For to-morrow we shall turn back toward St. Boniface again, and we shall take the boat for Quebec—and from there I shall take you to a land where there shall be no more grief, neither——"
I broke off suddenly. What had I said? My words—why, the devil had been quoting Scripture again! The bathos of it! My sacred task forgotten and honour thrown to the winds, and Jacqueline helpless there! I hung my head in misery and shame.
But very sweetly she raised hers and spoke to me.
"Paul, dear, if there never was anyone—if it is nothing but a dream——" Here she looked at me with doubtful scrutiny in her eyes, and then hastened to make amends for doubting me. "Of course, Paul, if there had been you could not have known. But though I know my heart is free—if there was nobody—why, let us go forward to my father's home, because there will be no cause there to separate us, my dear. So let us go on."
"Yes, let us go on," I muttered dully.
But when the issue came I knew that I would let no man stand between us.