y man who marries you. I cannot help if it brings
grief upon you. It would be the sorrow of my life not to have you! Oh,
let me touch your little white hand"--and he started from his seat with
an eager gesture.

She put both behind her. "I do not love you," she began bravely. "It
would take time----"

"I said I would wait, Rose of Quebec, wait months, for your sweetness to
blossom for me. But I cannot see you go to another."

"There is no other. There will be no other." She was sure she told the
whole truth. "But if you insist now, I shall die before a marriage
comes. I could slip out of life easily. Perhaps when I am strong again,
courage may come back to me. You must go away and let me be quite by
myself, and think how brave you were, how patient you are. Then when
you come again----"

She would be in her white winding sheet, then, and he would be afraid to
kiss her.

"But I won you fairly, Mam'selle. And I had great trembling of heart,
for the Huron chief was obdurate. I succeeded at length. _He_ has had a
wife, he does not need another. He might be your father. And you have
repaid him for all care by giving him back his life, by saving him from
torture you know little about. For if the party joining them had
discovered the robbery of their storehouse, there would have been little
mercy. Oh, Mam'selle, how can so sweet a being be so cold and
unyielding?"

"I have told you the secret of it. I do not love you. I do not want you
for a husband. But I will keep my promise. Give me time to get well. It
may not look so terrible to me then."

How lovely she was in her pleading, even if it did deny. He could have
snatched her to his heart and stifled her with kisses, yet he did not
dare to touch so much as her little finger. What strange power held her
aloof? But if she was once his wife----

"A month," he pleaded.

"Longer than that. Three months. Three whole moons. Then you may come
again and I will answer you."

His face paled with anger, his eyes were points of flame, his blood was
hot within him.

"I will not wait."

"Then you may have my dead body."

"But you break your promise."

"I ask you to wait," she said, in a steady tone. "That is all."

"And you will not seek to die, Mam'selle?"

"I will be your wife then. Now go. I am too tired to argue any more."

A sudden ray of hope kindled in the Indian's heart. He would see M.
Destournier, and lay the case before him, and beg his assistance. Surely