"I don't like to speak of him now, madame. It makes me shiver."
"You are not afraid of the dead?"
"I was never afraid of him living. I regarded him as a father."
"But one's husband is not to be regarded as a father."
"He was old enough to be my father, madame. I was not more than sixteen, besides being an orphan, and Mynheer Bronck was above fifty, yet he married me, and became the best husband in the colony. He was far from putting me in such states as Mynheer Van Corlaer does."
"The difference is that you love Monsieur Corlaer."
"Do not speak that word, madame."
"Would you have him marry another woman?"
"Yes," spoke Antonia in a stoical voice, "if that pleased him best. I should then be driven to no more voyages. He followed me to New Amsterdam; and I ventured on a long journey to Boston, where I had kinspeople, as you know. But there I must have broken down, madame, if I had not met you. It was fortunate for me that the English captain brought you out of your course. For mynheer set out to follow me there. And now he has come across the wilderness even to this fort!"
"Confess," said Marie, giving her a little shake, "how pleased you are with such a determined lover!"