"Edmonton,--friend of my heart,--alone! and you pass me without speech!
Ah,--that look! That look! I'd stake my soul--"
And once in the cool twilight of an ended day, with the tall trees
above and the river lapping below, he cried out her name,
"Maren!" and once again, "Maren!" with a world of change between the
two words.
The first plunged the girl's heart to her throat with its passion, the
second chilled her like a cool wind.
And all at once he said, after a pause, "What is it, little one?"
So passed the days of the return.
Hour by hour the bright waters of the lake spoke to the girl with
voices of regret and sadness. The blue sky above seemed to mirror the
dark face of Marc Dupre, the wind from the shores to be his low voice,
each passing shadow among the trees his slender figure returning from
the hunt for her.
Her heart was sore that Fate had willed it so, and yet, looking down at
the face of this man at her feet, she knew it had to be and that she
would do again all that she had done.
And ever before her passed the scornful face of the fair woman who had
set the little undertone to all the world.
It troubled her, and for hours together she sat in silence reasoning it
all out, while Mowbray's men dipped the shining blades and here and
there the voyageurs and Indians who wore no feathers sang snatches of
song, now a chanson of the trail and rapid, again a wordless monotony
of savage notes.
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