"As you please, mademoiselle. I can fish on that side as well as this." Upon that he put up his pipe,—I verily believe it was still alive and his pockets must have been lined with asbestos,—and we embarked on our little voyage.
I used my paddle mechanically, for I was thinking: "Is it for one moment probable I have any connection with that girl? Is that past, I am trying so hard to eliminate from my life, to present itself here as a quantity with which I must reckon—here in my life in this wilderness? Is there no avoiding it? André is so sure. Jamie knows he is sure; Mr. Ewart knows this too. They can say nothing to me about it—it is a matter of such delicacy; and they do not know who I am; even my journal does not tell that, and I knew this when I gave it into his hands.
"But the Doctor—he knows. He knows from Cale and Delia Beaseley. He knows who I am; in all probability knows this very day, from those papers in his possession, my father's name; but he knows nothing of this new complication that André has brought about by his insistence that I am like some woman who camped here many years ago—
"Twenty-seven years! That must have been just before I was born—and the date—and that word 'heureuse' with a queer capital H—oh—"
Perhaps it was a groan that escaped my lips, for, like a searchlight, the logic of events illumined each factor in that tragedy in which my mother—
My paddle fouled—the canoe careened—
"Sit still, for the love of God, sit still!" André fairly shrieked at me.
"It's all right, André," I said quietly, to calm him.
"They say the lake has no bottom just here, mademoiselle—and if I had lost you for him—" he muttered, and continued to mutter, easing himself of his fright by swearing softly. He soon regained his composure; but was still frowning when I glanced behind me.
What had this searchlight shown me?