land, some to Holland,
not liking the new King's policy. And some are dead. I should have no
one to make a home for me. A woman's loneliness is intense. She cannot
turn to business, nor go out and find friends."

That was true enough. He pitied her profoundly.

"Is it true our Governor is bringing his new wife to Quebec?" she asked
presently.

"So the trading vessels have said. They are already loading up with
furs, and trade seems brisk. Of course it brings great confusion. I have
taken charge of M. Giffard's bales that came in last week. They had
better be sent as usual. The Paris firm is eager for them. They are a
fine lot. What is your pleasure?"

"Oh, relieve me of all care that you can. I am so helpless. Laurent did
everything. Women were never meant for business, he thought. I am no
wiser than a child."

She looked so helpless, so sweet, so dependent.

"I shall be glad to do what I can. Yes, it would be no place for a
woman. She could not manage matters. And if you like to trust me----"

"I would trust you in all things. Laurent thought your judgment
excellent. He cared so much for you. Oh, if you will take charge----"

She looked up with sweet, appealing eyes. Did he not owe her some
protection and care? He was pondering silently.

"You have relieved me of such a burthen. I think I shall get well now.
I hardly knew whether I wanted most to live or die."

"Life is best, sweetest." It would be for her. He uttered the sentence
involuntarily.

"You make it so." Her eyes were bewitchingly downcast and a faint color
fluttered over her face, while her pretty hands worked nervously.

He paced the gallery afterward in the twilight, when the stars were
slowly finding their way through the blue vault overhead, and the river
plashed by with its monotone of music. She might desire to return to
France; this life in the wilderness did not appeal to delicate women.
Yet she had taken it very cheerfully, he thought.

If she decided to stay--there was one way in which he could befriend
her, perhaps make her happy again. Marriage was hardly considered the
outcome of love in that period, many other considerations entered into
it. There were betrothals where the future husband and wife saw each
other for the first time. And they did very well. His ideas of married
life were a sort of good-fellowship and admiration, if the woman was
pretty; good cooking and a desire to please among the commoner ones. At
four and twenty