you
guess why? It is because you have given me your promise, M'sieu David,
and because I believe you!"

And then she was gone.

For many minutes he did not move. The chanting of the rivermen, a
sudden wilder shout, the voices of men, and after that the grating of
something alongside the bateau came to him like sounds from another
world. Within himself there was a crash greater than that of physical
things. It was the truth breaking upon him, truth surging over him like
the waves of a sea, breaking down the barriers he had set up,
inundating him with a force that was mightier than his own will. A
voice in his soul was crying out the truth--that above all else in the
world he wanted to reach out his arms to this glorious creature who was
the wife of St. Pierre, this woman who had tried to kill him and was
sorry. He knew that it was not desire for beauty. It was the worship
which St. Pierre himself must have for this woman who was his wife. And
the shock of it was like a conflagration sweeping through him, leaving
him dead and shriven, like the crucified trees standing in the wake of
a fire. A breath that was almost a cry came from him, and his fists
knotted until they were purple. She was St. Pierre's wife! And he,
David Carrigan, proud of his honor, proud of the strength that made him
man, had dared covet her in this hour when her husband was gone! He
stared at the closed door, beginning to cry out against himself, and
over him there swept slowly and terribly another thing--the shame of
his weakness, the hopelessness of the thing that for a space had eaten
into him and consumed him.

And as he stared, the door opened, and Nepapinas came in.

XII

During the next quarter of an hour David was as silent as the old
Indian doctor. He was conscious of no pain when Nepapinas took off his
bandage and bathed his head in the lotion he had brought. Before a
fresh bandage was put on, he looked at himself for a moment in the
mirror. It was the first time he had seen his wound, and he expected to
find himself marked with a disfiguring scar. To his surprise there was
no sign of his hurt except a slightly inflamed spot above his temple.
He stared at Nepapinas, and there was no need of the question that was
in his mind.

The old Indian understood, and his dried-up face cracked and crinkled
in a grin. "Bullet hit a piece of rock, an' rock, not bullet, hit um
head," he explained. "Make skull almost break--bend um in--but