"Oh, Gabrielle, it is you that I love, and you only."
"Or the life of the wilderness, Jean; and the struggle, the conflict, the conquest?"
"Gabrielle!"
"Or the pretty log cabin down there, Jean; or that lovely canoe all made of one piece of bark, so strong, so graceful, so perfect in all its lines. Or----"
"Hush, dear," said Jean, taking her in his strong arms, and kissing her on the wayward lips again and again, while her flaming cheeks and loving eyes, her quick breathing and the fluttering of her heart, told better than any words that she loved this man and would go with him to the end of the world.
By-and-by they went down the hill together; and as Jean was showing Gabrielle his home in the wilderness, she looked up in his face with an expression of perfect trust and whispered her confession of love and unconditional surrender.
"Jean, we shall be happy here. You will be my world and I yours. Two worlds should be enough for us; quite sufficient, should they not?"
"But no, dear. That was a foolish plan, a species of insanity, I think, a madness that came upon me. We will spend the honeymoon here, if you consent; and after that we will make our home in St. Placide. It will be a modest home at the first, but it will be the beginning of great things. There is only one obstacle, one danger; but we will not think of that. Nothing shall come between us any more, Gabrielle."
"Obstacle, Jean? Danger? I cannot think of any. But wait. Do you know why I came here? I had quite forgotten. Can you guess?"
"Gabrielle, I had not thought of it. Strange, too, that you should find your way to Lac Desir, so far from home. But you were nearly lost in the end."