The Nor'westers escaping, I have no doubt. Would our captives were
among them."
"No such fortune, M'sieu," said Maren calmly, "Heard you not the cry
before the gate in that unhallowed scramble what time they took the
factor and the venturer? 'Twas 'a skin for a skin.' There are many
guards."
The summer day dreamed by in drowsy beauty, like a woman or a rose
full-blown, and Maren, who would at another time have seen each
smallest detail of its perfection through the eye of love, saw only the
rushing water ahead and counted time and distance.
Dupre, kneeling in the bow, his lithe brown arms bare to the shoulder,
where the muscles lifted and fell like waves, was silent. Sadness sat
upon him like a garment, yet lightened by a holy joy.
Odd servers of Love, these two, who knew only its pain without its
pleasure, yet who were standing on the threshold of its Holy of Holies.
Of nights they sat together at the tiny fire of a few laid sticks and
talked at intervals in a strange companionship.
Never again did they speak of love, nor even so much as skirt its
fringes, though the young trapper read with wistful eyes its working in
the woman's face.
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