He could not answer her.
She turned again towards him, terribly overwrought, clutching her breast.
"That is true! You know it!"
"Moon—please do not say these things."
"It is true—will you not admit it? Ah, you will not speak—that means you agree. Because you do not wish to hurt me, you will not speak—but you answer with your silence."
A long pause came. Hector wheeled and looked, unseeing, towards Fort Walsh. Waiting, he heard her fighting back to calmness. She brought herself at last to look at him. His cap was off, his profile cleanly cut against the strong sunlight, his hair ruffled by the soft wind and his scarlet tunic was like a flame to her senses. Her love for him welled up like a strong, deep tide in her desolate heart, mastering her.
"Yet I must face the degradation," she said suddenly, vast tenderness giving a pleading beauty to her voice, "because I love you—I cannot help myself. If I might be your wife—Oh, then I would laugh at all the cruel contempt that poor Indians like me have ever known! But if that cannot be—then let me be your servant and slave. Only to see you, to give my life to your service!"
"Moon," he declared, "I will hear no more. I will not have you speak like this to me!"
"Oh, do not think to save me from shame." She laughed bitterly. "Already I—the daughter of a chief—have broken the laws of my people in telling you my love. I will be an outcast. The sin is on my head. Then let me speak and beg that I may be your slave. I could keep silent no longer. Long have I loved you. You would not hear my father. But I cannot bear to give you up. So I sent for you. And all I ask from you is pity—pity! As for the scorn of my people and yours—I do not care!"
Her passion died away, exhausted, in a little while. And he took her hand and answered her.