Down by the southern wall an old fiddle squeaked dolefully, and from
beyond the stockade came the drowsy call of a bird deep in the forest
depths.
On the river bank young Marc Dupre sang as he fumbled at a canoe
awaiting the morn when he was to set off up-stream for any word that he
might pick up of the coming of the Nakonkirhirinons. There was no moon
and the twilight had deepened softly, covering the post with a soft
mantle of dreams, when there was a step on the hard earth and the
factor turned sharply to behold a little figure in a red kirtle, its
curly head hanging a bit as if in shame, and at its side the shadowy
form of the great dog Loup.
"M'sieu," said Francette timidly, and the tone was new to that
audacious slip of impudence; "M'sieu."
"What is it, little one?" said McElroy gently, his own disgust of his
morning's quickness softening his voice that he might not again play
the hasty fool, and Francette crept nearer until she stood close to the
log step.
The small hands were twisting nervously and the little breast lifting
swiftly with an agitation entirely new to her.
Presently she seemed to find the voice that eluded her.
"Oh, M'sieu!" she cried at last, breaking out as if the words were
thick crowded in her throat; "a heavy burden has fallen upon me! Is it
right, M'sieu, for a maid to die for love of a man, waiting, waiting,
waiting for the look, the word that shall crown her bondage? Love lives
all round in the post save in the heart that is all the world to
Francette! Why should there be happiness everywhere but here?"
With a gesture pathetically dramatic the little maid threw her hands
across her heaving breast and gazed at McElroy with big eyes, starry in
the dusk.
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