"Marie!" she pleaded, "can it be possible you would flee from me?"
"Nay," returned the other, her voice trembling painfully, as she struggled to restrain herself. "It is not that. Dear, dear friend! I knew you were among the few saved from Dearborn. The American hunter told me, and ever since have I tried to avoid you in the camp. 'Twas not for lack of the old love, yet I feared to meet you. Much has occurred of late to make the keeping of my vow most difficult. I have been weak, and grievously tempted; and I felt scarce strong enough, even though protected by prayers, to withstand also my deep love for you."
Their voices insensibly merged into French, each speaking so rapidly and low that I could get little meaning of it. Then I noted De Croix, half lying upon the ground, his head hidden within his hands. With sudden remembrance of the work before us, I touched his shoulder.
"Come below, Monsieur, and help me search for the boat," I said, kindly, for I was truly touched by his grief. "It will help clear your mind to have some labor to accomplish."
"I dare not, Wayland!" he answered hoarsely, and the face he uplifted toward me was strangely white and drawn. "I must stay with her; I dare not leave her again alone, lest she escape me once more. She is mine, truly mine by every law of the Church,—my wife, I tell you, and I would die here in the wilderness rather than permit her longer to doom herself to such a fate as this."
His words and manner were so wild they startled me. Surely, in his present frame of mind he would prove useless on such a mission as that before us.
"Then remain here, Monsieur!" I said, "and do your best to win her consent to accompany us. No doubt Mademoiselle will aid you all that is in her power."
CHAPTER XXXIV
A STUMBLE IN THE DARK
Gloomy as the hole was, there was no help for it. I could perceive nothing below, not even my hand when held within a foot of my eyes; nor had I the slightest previous knowledge of the place to guide me, even had not the fire ruins above effectually blocked every passage-way with fallen debris. Listening however intently, my ears could distinguish only the faint lapping of the river as it crept about the log piling on which the house had been built; but beyond this dim guidance, I had to feel my way forward with extended hands and groping feet. Swinging to my back the rifle that De Croix had brought, and casting an inquiring glance backward at the little group huddled upon the bank, almost invisible even at that short distance, I grasped the piling nearest me and slid down into the unknown darkness.