"They are all beautiful over there?" she asked wonderingly, when he had finished.
"Many of them are beautiful, but none so beautiful as you, Mélisse," he replied, leaning near to her, his eyes shining. "Do you know that you are beautiful?"
His words frightened her so much that she bowed her head to hide the signs of it in her face. Jan had often spoken those same words—a thousand times he had told her that she was beautiful—but there bad never been this fluttering of her heart before.
There were few things which Iowaka and she did not hold in secret between them, and a day or two later Mélisse told her friend what Dixon had said. For the first time Iowaka abused the confidence placed in her, and told Jean.
"Le diable!" gritted Jean, his face blackening.
He said no more until night, when the children were asleep. Then he drew Iowaka close beside him on a bench near the stove, and asked carelessly:
"Mon ange, if one makes an oath to the blessed Virgin, and breaks it, what happens?"
He evaded the startled look in his wife's big black eyes.
"It means that one will be for ever damned unless he confesses to a priest soon after, doesn't it ma chérie? And if there is no priest nearer than four hundred miles, it is a dangerous thing to do, is it not? But—" He did not wait for an answer. "If one might have the oath broken, and not do it himself, what then?"
"I don't know," said Iowaka simply, staring at him in amazed questioning.