"Come in, Ma'amselle," whispered Rette from her motherly heart, drawn
by sight of her haggard face, but Maren's eyes had fallen on a little
figure huddled on the far side of the bed with its face buried against
McElroy's left hand.
She knew the small head running over with black curls.
"Nay, Rette," she said quietly, "I would speak a moment with you."
The woman came out and closed the door.
"Poor little fool!" she whispered, "she is worn to a shadow with these
weeks of weeping, and, now that he is back, will not give over hanging
to his hand like one drowning."
"Heed not. Is it in your heart, Rette, to do a deed of kindness for me,
to keep a word of faith?"
"With all my heart, Ma'amselle!"
"Then," whispered Maren, apart from the clerk's listening ears, "take
you this letter. Keep it until M'sieu the factor is in his right mind,
then give it him with your own hands. If he--if he should--burn it,
Rette, unopened."
And she gave into the woman's keeping the only letter she had ever
written to a man.
It was in French, and the script was fine and finished.
This was what she had said, alone in the little room with its eastern
window at the end of the Baptiste cabin:
"MONSIEUR MCELROY, Factor of Fort de Seviere, ave atque vale.
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