As they neared the southern end, where Winnipeg narrows like the neck
of a bottle, his tongue loosened from its silence and he began to
babble and talk in broken sentences, and it was all about De Courtenay
and a remorse that ate the troubled soul.
"I owe you apologies, M'sieu,--'tis a sorry plight and I alone am to
blame. And yet I have a score,--gladly would I take my will of you for
that one fault,--another time,--another place. Still have I no right,
save as one man who,--But I have a plan,--one may escape,--listen--when
I grapple with this guard, do you make for the river--with all speed--
My God! My God! M'sieu! Why did you not run?" And so he muttered and
sighed, and Maren bent above with wide eyes.
Something there was between these two, some enmity that followed even
into the land of shadows and yet held them gentlemen through it all,
offering and rejecting some chance of escape. A weary, weary tangle.
Again he would fancy himself back in De Seviere and always there was De
Courtenay with his smiling face and tantalizing beauty.
"Welcome, M'sieu, to our post! Seldom do we meet so gay a guest!"
Often the wandering words would stumble among his accounts at the
factory and he would give directions to the clerks, and then Ridgar's
name would come, only to carry him instantly to the camp of the savages
on Deer River.
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