"It has gone about that he is to take la Longue Traverse. He knows it himself."
"It is barbaric, horrible; it is murder."
"My dear, it is all that; but this is the country of dread. You have known the soft, bright side always—the picturesque men, the laugh, the song. If you had seen as much of the harshness of wilderness life as a doctor's wife must you would know that when the storms of their great passions rage it is well to sit quiet at your prayers."
The girl's eyes were wide-fixed, staring at this first reality of life. A thousand new thoughts jostled for recognition. Suddenly her world had been swept from beneath her. The ancient patriarchal, kindly rule had passed away, and in its place she was forced to see a grim iron bond of death laid over her domain. And her father—no longer the grave, kindly old man—had become the ruthless tyrant. All these bright, laughing voyageurs, playmates of her childhood, were in reality executioners of a savage blood-law. She could not adjust herself to it.
She got to her feet with an effort. "Thank you, Mrs. Cockburn," she said, in a low voice. "I—I do not quite understand. But I must go now. I must—I must see that my father's room is ready for him." she finished, with the proud defensive instinct of the woman who has been deeply touched. "You know I always do that myself."
"Good-night, dearie," replied the older woman, understanding well the girl's desire to shelter behind the commonplace. She leaned forward and kissed her. "God keep and guide you. I hope I have done right."
"Yes," cried Virginia, with unexpected fire. "Yes, you did just right! I ought to have been told long ago! They've kept me a perfect child to whom everything has been bright and care-free and simple. I—I feel that until this moment I have lacked my real womanhood!"
She bowed her head and passed through the log room into the outer air.
Her father, her father, had willed this man's death, and so he was to die! That explained many things—the young fellow's insolence, his care-free recklessness, his passionate denunciation of the Reverend Crane and the Reverend Crane's religion. He wanted one little thing—the gift of a rifle wherewith to assure his subsistence should he escape into the forest—and of all those at Conjuror's House to whom he might turn for help, some were too hard to give it to him, and some too afraid! He should have it! She, the daughter of her father, would see to it that in this one instance her father's sin should fail! Suddenly, in the white heat of her emotion, she realized why these matters stirred her so profoundly, and she stopped short and gasped with the shock of it. It did not matter that she thwarted her father's will; it would not matter if she should be discovered and punished as only these harsh characters could punish. For the brave bearing, the brave jest, the jaunty facing of death, the tender, low voice, the gay song, the aurora-lit moment of his summons—all these had at last their triumph. She knew that she loved him; and that if he were to die, she would surely die too.
And, oh, it must be that he loved her! Had she not heard it in the music of his voice from the first?—the passion of his tones? the dreamy, lyrical swing of his talk by the old bronze guns?