You are too ready to believe
anything. How do you know this venturess is not a--Jezebel?"
For a moment an awful silence fell upon the three, and they could hear
the myriad sounds of the evening camp round about.
Then Maren, her eyes wide in amaze, said stupidly:
"Eh,--Madame?"
And the Irishwoman cried: "Frances! For shame!"
But the other was very much composed.
"I am right, all the same,--what woman of modesty would follow a man to
the wilderness, confessing brazenly her love? You haven't noticed any
hysterics on my part over it,--nor will you. I think it all a very open
scandal."
The little woman was flying into a rage of tumbled words and hopeless
brogue, but Maren Le Moyne, the blood red to her temples, rose
silently, took the pot of broth, and walked away, and never in her life
did she hold herself so tall and straight.
As she knelt beside the blanket bed of McElroy, and lifted his helpless
head, her eyes were burning sombrely.
"This, too?" she was saying dumbly, within herself. "Is this, too, part
of the lesson of life?"
And all through the days that followed, long warm days, with the songs
of birds from the gliding shores, the ripple of waters beneath the prow
of a canoe, she sat beside the unconscious man and looked at him with
dumb yearning.
Pages:
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282