He thought of the morrow
and what it would bring, and the sadness in his heart grew with the
deepening shades.
The fringed garment of white doeskin lay under his elbow and a fold of
it brushed his cheek, and, boy that he was, its touch brought the quick
tears to his eyes.
"Ma'amselle," he said presently, when the turquoise had faded to purple
and the purple to velvet black, with the stars like a dowager's
diamonds thickset upon it, "Ma'amselle, what think you is behind the
stars?"
Maren turned her face to him like a sweet young moon, pale in the
night.
"Behind the stars? Why, Heaven, M'sieu, where all is glory; Heaven
assuredly."
"Aye. Where all is glory. Yes, for those who keep the holy mandates,
whose hearts are pure as that heaven itself. For such as you. Oh, Holy
Mother!--" his voice fell to a whisper; "there is no heaven,
Ma'amselle, so pure as the white heart of you! But for him whose days
have gone like the butterfly's flight from one prodigal joy to the
next, whose heart has known neither love of God nor love of a good
woman, save for a little space, whose tongue has boasted and
blasphemed, and whose life has been worth no jot of good,--what, think
you, a waits so lost a man as this?"
The light "whoosh,--sst--whoosh" of the dipping paddles, the
occasional rattle of a handle on a gunwale, formed a blending
background against which his low words were distinguishable only to the
girl beside him.
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