Like the quick passing of sunshine, the fun swept from her face, leaving her blue eyes staring up at him, filled with a pain which he had never seen in them before. In a moment he knew that she had understood him, and he could have cut out his tongue. Her hand reached his arm, and she stopped him, her face lifted pleadingly, the tears slowly gathering in her eyes.
"Forgive me!" she whispered, her voice breaking into a sob. "Dear, dear Jan, forgive me!" She caught one of his hands in both her own, and for an instant held it so that he could feel the throbbing of her heart. "To-day is your birthday, Jan—yours and mine, mine and yours—and we will always have it that way—always—won't we, Jan?"
CHAPTER XVII
THE RENUNCIATION
Jan was glad when the evening came, and was gone. Not until Jean and Iowaka had said good night with Croisset and his wife, and both Cummins and Mélisse had gone to their rooms, did he find himself relieved of the tension under which he had struggled during all of that night's merry-making in the cabin.
From the first he knew that his nerves were strung by some strange and indefinable sensation that was growing within him—something which he could hardly have explained at first, but which swiftly took form and meaning, and oppressed him more as the hours flew by. Almost fiercely he strove to fight back the signs of it from his face and voice. Never had he played as on this night. His violin leaped with life, his voice rose high in the wild forest songs of Jean de Gravois and Croisset, he sprang aloft in the caribou dance until the tips of his fingers touched the log beams overhead; and yet there was none of the flush of excitement in his face, no joyous fire flashing from his eyes upon Mélisse.
She saw this, and wondered. A dozen times her eyes encountered his, straight and questioning, when the others were not looking. She saw in response only a dull, lusterless glow that was not like the Jan who had pursued her that day on the mountain-top.
Jan was unaware of what was lacking in him. He smiled when she gave him these glances; deep down in him his heart trembled at the beauty of her flushed cheeks, the luster of her coiled hair, the swimming depths of her clear eyes; but the mask of the thing at which she wondered still remained.
After the others had gone, Cummins sat up to smoke a pipe. When he had finished, he went to his room. Jan was now sleeping in a room at the company's store, and after a time he rose silently to take down his cap and coat. He opened the outer door quietly, so as not to arouse Mélisse, who had gone to bed half an hour before.
As he was about to go out, there came a sound—a low, gentle, whispered word.