rock. You are my wife and in his charge.
He will guard you absolutely."

"Are we in danger of attack?"

"I can imagine no possible reason for attack, else I should not leave
you. The Indians are friendly. One thing troubles me. Your
cousin---- Should"----

She looked up. "Should Lord Starling find me?" she completed. "Well,
he would tarry here until you came. He would at least show that
courtesy. I can promise as much as that for the family name, monsieur."

I smiled at her. "I shall await the meeting," I said with unction. I
motioned Labarthe to the paddle, and I kissed the woman's hand.

"I salute your courage. I shall see you within the week, madame."

She looked straight at me. "And until then, good fortune."

But I paused. "Wish me opportunity. That is all that I ask from you
or of you,--opportunity. Good-by for a week, madame."

CHAPTER XVIII

IN WHICH I USE OPPORTUNITY

I squatted beside many camp fires in the next week. I sat in the
flattened cones of the Chippewas' tepees and smoked innumerable pipes
of rank tobacco with the old men. I traded some, but talked more, and
at the end of the week I started home. I waited for a pleasant day and
a westerly wind, for the small canoe was perilously laden with skins.
There was scarcely room for Labarthe and myself to crowd down on our
knees and use our paddles.

We slipped into Sturgeon Cove late in the afternoon, and swept with the
wind up the stretches of the bay to the camping ground. Summer was at
flood tide, and the air was pungent and the leaves shining. The sunset
shone through tattered ends of cloud, so that the west was hung with
crimson banners. It was my first homecoming.

Before we reached the camp I saw the woman. She had strayed down the
shore to the west,--too far for safety, I thought,--and was standing
alone on the sand, looking toward the sunset. Her head was back, and
her arms flung out to the woods and the shining sky. I have sometimes
found myself stretching my own arms in just that fashion when I have
been alone and have felt something pressing within me that was too
large for speech. I motioned Labarthe to ship his paddle that I might
look. The western glow was full upon the woman, and her lips were
parted. The open sleeves of her skin blouse fell away from her arms,
which had grown gently rounded since I saw her first. I could not see
her eyes, but she looked somewhere off into the untraveled west,-