d he
realized that to ask forgiveness would be but another blunder. He
almost groaned as he thought of what he had done. In his desire to
understand, to know more about Jeanne, he had driven her into a corner.
What he had forced from her he might have learned a little later from
Pierre or from the father at Fort o' God. He thought that Jeanne must
despise him now, for he had taken advantage of her helplessness and his
own position. He had saved her from her enemies; and in return she had
opened her heart, naked and bleeding, to his eyes. What she had told
him was not a voluntary confidence; it was a confession wrung from her
by the rack of his questionings--the confession that she was a
waif-child, that Pierre was not her brother, and that the man at Fort
o' God was not her father. He had gone to the very depths of that which
was sacred to herself and those whom she loved.

He rose and stirred the fire, and stray ends of birch leaped into
flame, lighting his pale face. He wanted to go to the tent, kneel there
where Jeanne could hear him, and tell her that it was all a mistake.
Yet he knew that this could not be, neither the next day nor the next,
for to plead extenuation for himself would be to reveal his love. Two
or three times he had been on the point of revealing that love. Only
now, after what had happened, did it occur to him that to disclose his
heart to Jeanne would be the greatest crime he could commit. She was
alone with him in the heart of a wilderness, dependent upon him, upon
his honor. He shivered when he thought how narrow had been his escape,
how short a time he had known her, and how in that brief spell he had
given himself up to an almost insane hope. To him Jeanne was not a
stranger. She was the embodiment, in flesh and blood, of the spirit
which had been his companion for so long. He loved her more than ever
now, for Jeanne the lost child of the snows was more the earthly
revelation of his beloved spirit than Jeanne the sister of Pierre.
But--what was he to Jeanne?

He left the fire and went to the pile of balsam which he had spread out
between two rocks for his bed. He lay down and pulled Pierre's blanket
over him, but his fatigue and his desire for sleep seemed to have left
him, and it was a long time before slumber finally drove from him the
thought of what he had done. After that he did not move. He heard none
of the sounds of the night. A little owl, the devil-witch, screamed
horribly overhead