"Marcel, Mamsey thought I was here last night. Will you please tell her I was?"
Marcel's hands were in biscuit dough; she leaned forward heavily, and the soft, light mass rose half-way up her arms.
"Lord! child, where were you last night? I thought you were keeping my boarder as well as your own. Mam'selle just stopped here; she looked queer enough when she found you were not here. There's no use of the lie, child. She knows."
For a moment Donelle looked as though nothing mattered, as if the earth had slipped from beneath her feet.
From Gavot's window she had seen the River Queen depart with its two passengers from Point of Pines. Tom had not been visible since daybreak, the world had drifted away. Alone, in space, Donelle waited, looking dumbly at Marcel.
"Where were you, child?"
"I was at Tom's cabin. I'm married to him. Father Mantelle married us."
Marcel raised herself, the dough clinging to her hands. She shook it off, tore it off, went to a bucket of water and soaked it off, then sank into a chair.
"I'm fainting," she announced in a businesslike tone, and seemed, for an instant, to have lost consciousness.
This brought Donelle to her senses, she sprang to Marcel and put her arm around the limp form.