"Why?" he asked. His voice was low and assuring. "Tell me--why?"
He read her words as she wrote them, leaning half across the table in his eagerness.
"I am a stranger," she repeated. "I want some one to help me. Accidentally I learned who you were and made up my mind to see you at the hotel, but when I got there I was afraid to go in. Then I saw you in the window. After a little you came out and I saw you enter here. I didn't know what kind of place it was and I followed you. Won't you please go with me--to where I am staying--and I will tell you--"
She left the sentence unfinished, her eyes pleading with him. Without a word he rose and seized his hat.
"I will go, Miss--" He laughed frankly into her face, inviting her to write her name. For a moment she smiled back at him, the color brightening her cheeks. Then she turned and hurried down the stair.
Outside Howland gave her his arm. His eyes, passing above her, caught again the luring play of the aurora in the north. He flung back his shoulders, drank in the fresh air, and laughed in the buoyancy of the new life that he felt.
"It's a glorious night!" he exclaimed.
The girl nodded, and smiled up at him. Her face was very near to his shoulder, ever more beautiful in the white light of the stars.
They did not look behind them. Neither heard the quiet fall of moccasined feet a dozen yards away. Neither saw the gleaming eyes and the thin, dark face of Jean Croisset, the half-breed, as they walked swiftly in the direction of the Saskatchewan.