Marianson turned and looked at the water he must venture upon, without a sail to help him. It was not all uncovered from the night, but a long purple current ran out, as if God had made a sudden amethyst bridge across the blue strait.
Reluctant as she was to call him from the cave, she dared not delay. The breath of the virgin woods was overpoweringly sweet. Her hair clung to her forehead in moist rings, and her cheeks were pallid and wet with mist which rose and rose on all sides like clouds in a holy picture.
He was asleep.
She crouched down on cold hands and saw that. He had waited in the cave as he promised, and had fallen asleep. His back was towards her. Instead of lying at ease, his body was flexed. Her enlarging pupils caught a stain of red on the bear-skin, then the scarlet tonsure on his crown. He was asleep, but the Sioux had been there.
The low song of wind along that wooded ridge, and the roar of dashing lake water, repeated their monotone hour after hour. It proved as fair a day as the island had ever seen, and when it was nearly spent, Marianson Bruelle still sat on the cave floor holding the dead boy in her arms. Heart-uprooting was a numbness, like rapture. At least he could not leave her. She had his kiss, his love. She had his body, to hide in a grave as secret as a flower's. The curé could some time bless it, but the English who had slain him should never know it. As she held him to her breast, so the sweet processes of the woods should hold him, and make him part of the island.