"Oh, M'sieu!" she cried tensely; "know you of that country which lies
far to the west and which the Indians call the Land of the Whispering
Hills?"
"Aye. It lies circling a great lake, blue as the summer skies, its
waters forever rippled by the winds of the west which sing in the
grassy vales and over the rounded knolls that stud the region,--a land
of waving trees, of high coolness, or rich valleys thick with rank
grasses and abounding with the pelt animals. It is the country of the
Athabasca and from it came last year a band of the Chippewas heavily
laden with furs. They told fine tales of its beauty. It is for that
land you are bound?"
"For that land, M'sieu," said Maren Le Moyne, and her lips trembled;
"for that virgin goddess of the dreams of years! I have seen its hills,
its waving grass, wind-blown, its leaping streams,--I have breathed the
sweet air of its forests and gazed on its beauties since my early
childhood, in dreams, always in dreams, M'sieu, until I could bear the
strain no longer. And now, when it beckons almost within my reach, when
its very breath seems in my nostrils, I must stop for a year's space!
You know, M'sieu,--you comprehend?"
She leaned forward looking earnestly into McElroy's eyes, and a surge
of painful ecstasy shot to the man's heart, so near she seemed in the
suddenly created sympathy of the moment, so near and gracious, so
strong in her pure passion, so infinitely sweet.
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