“What is it, Ma'amselle?” he begged abjectly. “I would heal it with my blood!”
Extravagant, impulsive, the boy was in deadly earnest, and Maren Le Moyne was conscious of it as simply as that she lived.
Just as simply she acknowledged to him what she would have to none other in De Seviere, that something had fallen from a clear sky.
“Nay,” she said, and the deep voice was lifeless, “I am beyond help.”
Dupre's fingers slipped, trembling, around her arm.
“But I am a stone to your foot, Ma'amselle,—always remember that. When the way becomes too hard there shall be a stone to your foot. I ask no better fate and you have said.”
The miserable eyes were not dead to everything. At his swift words they glowed a moment.
“Aye,—I have said, and I thank God, M'sieu, for such friendship. I am rich, indeed.”
“Oho! Marc Dupre does better at the lovemaking than at the trapping! His account at the factory suffers from les amours!”
A childish voice broke in upon them, and Francette's impish face peeped round the corner of the nearest cabin.