During the meal Philip could not but observe that Jeanne was laboring under some mysterious strain. Her cheeks were brilliantly flushed, and her eyes were filled with a lustrous brightness that he had never seen in them before. Their beauty was almost feverish. Several times he caught a strange little tremor of her white shoulders, as though a sudden chill had passed through her. He discovered, too, that Pierre was observing these things, and that there was something forced in the half-breed's cheerfulness. But D'Arcambal and Otille seemed completely oblivious of any change. Their happiness overflowed. Philip thought of his last supper at Churchill, with Eileen Brokaw and her father. Miss Brokaw had acted strangely then, and had struggled to hide some secret grief or excitement, as Jeanne was struggling now.
He was glad when the meal was finished, and the master of Fort o' God rose from his seat. At D'Arcambal's movement his eyes caught Jeanne's, and then he saw that Pierre was looking sharply at him.
"Jeanne owes you an apology—and an explanation, M'sieur Philip," said D'Arcambal, resting a hand upon Jeanne's head. "We are going to retire, and she will initiate you into the fold of Fort o' God."
Pierre and Otille followed him from the room. For the first time in an hour Jeanne laughed frankly at Philip.
"There isn't much to explain, M'sieur Philip," she said, rising from her seat. "You know pretty nearly all there is to know about Fort o' God now. Only I am sure that I did not appear to value your confidence very much—a little while ago. It must have seemed ungrateful in me, indeed, to have told you so little about myself and my home, after what you did for Pierre and me. But I have father's permission now. It is the second time that he has ever given it to me."
"And I don't want to hear," exclaimed Philip, bluntly. "I have been more or less of a brute, Miss Jeanne. I know enough about Fort o' God. It is a glorious place. You owe me nothing, and for that reason—"
"But I insist," interrupted the girl. "Do you mean to say that you do not care to listen, when this is the second time in my life that I have had the opportunity of talking about my home? And the first—didn't give me any pleasure. This will."
A shadow came into Jeanne's eyes. She motioned him to a seat beside her in front of the fire. Her nearness, the touch of her dress, the sweet perfume of her presence, thrilled him. He felt that the moment was near when the whole world as he knew it was to slip away from him, leaving him in a paradise, or a chaos of despair. Jeanne looked up at the dueling pistols. The firelight trembled in the soft folds of lace over her bosom; it glistened in her hair, and lighted her face with a gentle glow.
"There isn't much to explain," she said again, in a voice so low that it was hardly more than a whisper. "But what little there is I want you to know, so that when you go away you will understand. More than two hundred years ago a band of gentlemen adventurers were sent over into this country by Prince Rupert to form the Hudson's Bay Company. That is history, and you know more of it, probably, than I. One of these men was Le Chevalier Grosellier. One summer he came up the Churchill, and stopped at the great rock on which we saw the sun setting to-night, and which was called the Sun Rock by the Indians. He was struck by the beauty of the place, and when he went back to France it was with the plan of returning to build himself a chateau in the wilderness. Two or three years later he did this, and called the place Fort o' God. For more than a century, M'sieur, Fort o' God was a place of revel and pleasure in the heart of this desolation. Early in the nineteenth century it passed into the hands of a man by the name of D'Arcy, and it is said that at one time it housed twenty gentlemen and as many ladies of France for one whole season. Its history is obscure, and mostly lost. But for a long time after D'Arcy came it was a place of adventure, of pleasure, and of mystery, very little of which remains to-day. Those are his pistols above the fire. He was killed by one of them out there beside the big rock, in a quarrel with one of his guests over a woman. We think—here—from letters that we have found, that her name was Camille. There is a chest in my room filled with linen that bears her name. This dress came from that chest. I have to be careful of them, as they tear very easily. After D'Arcy the place was almost forgotten and remained so until nearly forty years ago when my father came into possession of it. That, M'sieur, is the very simple story of Fort o' God. Its old name is forgotten. It lives only with us. Others know it as D'Arcambal House."
"Yes, I have heard of that," said Philip.