Some day, perhaps, an inventive man may discover love, the atmosphere our souls breathe. And other men will tell him, "How you've changed!"
When we had gained the secrecy of the woods, and Buckie put down his load to sit on a wayside log among the fern, he told me wonderful gossip.
My telegram had found him acting regimental sergeant-major at headquarters, and when he applied for a furlough on urgent private affairs, the commissioner gave him a parchment signed and sealed by the viceroy, Her Majesty's commission. He was Inspector Buckie posted to his old Troop D at Fort French, by special request of Sam, the officer commanding. The senior inspector there was Mr. Sarde. The orderly-room clerk was Staff-Sergeant la Mancha, my Brat. The rest of the fellows were new, and total strangers. Nine years. Of course.
"Your wife—" he asked.
"Oh, yes." I remembered. "How's my señora?"
"Dead."
"Can you prove that?"
With all his old, quaint official delight in documents, Buckie showed me a letter from the sheriff at Helena. It seemed that the señora had become a woman of the town, and died quite naturally of drink. Only the sudden flight of her kept man, Red Saunders, had given rise to a certain amount of suspicion, perhaps ill-founded. At least, the señora's death had set me free.
So far, Buckie knew nothing of my alliance under the Indian law with my dear lady, and when we came to her camp, he was shocked to his official soul at being presented. Yet during the long years, he had learned to speak Blackfoot with a strong Canadian accent, and shy as my lady always was of strangers, she seemed to like my friend. After all, the chap was a gentleman, delicately tactful, reverencing women, and presently surrendered to her charm. Moreover, the pain and danger of her illness had partly unsheathed the sweet and radiant spirit of the sacred woman, so that her beauty had taken on an unearthly glamour. To that, my friend proved sensitive.
After dinner, I told Rain of my new freedom, and begged her to accept the white men's rite of marriage. To her, that observance seemed a very trivial matter, and quite ridiculous was the rank it would give to my consort as Marchioness of the Alpuxarras. And yet, as we hoped for children, she consented to legalize our marriage, and that afternoon we waited upon the priest to whom I had made confession.