"Now see how it is with nature, Angélique. Life is always rising out of death. This affair of ours,—I call it a lily growing out of the water. Does it trouble you that your old home is out there standing almost to its eaves in the Mississippi?"
"Papa cannot now give me so good a dower." The girl's lowered eyes laughed into his.
"We will not have any settlements or any dower. We will be married in this new American way. Everything I have left from this flood will be yours and the children's, anyhow. But while there is game in the woods, or bacon in the cellar, or flour in the bin, or wine to be tapped, or a cup of milk left, not a child or woman or man shall go hungry. I was not unprepared for this. My fur storehouse there on the bank of the Okaw is empty. At the first rumor of high water I had the skins carried to the strong-house on the hill."
Angélique's wet hair still clung to her forehead, but her warmth had returned with a glow. The colonel was a compact man, who had passed through water as his own element. To be dripping was no hindrance to his courtship.
"When may we celebrate the marriage?"
"Is it a time to speak of marriage when two are lying dead in the house?"
His countenance changed at the rebuke, and, as all fortunate people do when they have passed the selfish fury of youth, he apologized for success.
"It is true. And Reece Zhone was the only man in the Territory whom I feared as a rival. As soon as he is laid low I forget him. He would not so soon forget me. Yet I do not forget him. The whole Illinois Territory will remember him. But Reece Zhone himself would not blame me, when I am bringing you home to my house, for hinting that I hope to keep you there."
"To keep me there, monsieur the colonel! No, I am not to be married in a hurry."
"But I made my proposals months ago, Angélique. The children and I have long had our secrets about bringing you home. Two of them sit on my knee and two of them climb my back, and we talk it over. They will not let you leave the house alive, mademoiselle. Father Olivier will still celebrate the sacraments among us. Kaskaskia will have the consolations of religion for this flood; but I may not have the consolation of knowing my own wedding-day."