the tears coursing unheeded down her cheeks.

_Chapter Fourteen_

Slower and slower her paddle dipped, lower and lower hung her head,
faster and faster flowed her tears. The instinctive recoil, the
passionate resentment had gone. In the bitterness of her spirit she
knew not what she thought except that she would give her soul to see
him again, to feel the touch of his lips once more. For she could not
make herself believe that this would ever come to pass. He had gone
like a phantom, like a dream, and the mists of life had closed about
him, showing no sign. He had vanished, and at once she seemed to know
that the episode was finished.

The canoe whispered against the soft clay bottom. She had arrived,
though how the crossing had been made she could not have told. Slowly
and sorrowfully she disembarked. Languidly she drew the light craft
beyond the stream's eager fingers. Then, her forces at an end, she
huddled down on the ground and gave herself up to sorrow.

The life of the forest went on as though she were not there. A big owl
far off said hurriedly his _whoo-whoo-whoo_, as though he had the
message to deliver and wanted to finish the task. A smaller owl near
at hand cried _ko-ko-ko-oh_ with the intonation of a tin horn. Across
the river a lynx screamed, and was answered at once by the ululations
of wolves. On the island the _giddes_ howled defiance. Then from
above, clear, spiritual, floated the whistle of shore birds arriving
from the south. Close by sounded a rustle of leaves, a sharp squeak;
a tragedy had been consummated, and the fierce little mink stared
malevolently across the body of his victim at the motionless figure on
the beach.

Virginia, drowned in grief, knew of none of these things. She was
seeing again the clear brown face of the stranger, his curly brown
hair, his steel eyes, and the swing of his graceful figure. Now he
fronted the wondering _voyageurs_, one foot raised against the bow of
the _brigade_ canoe; now he stood straight and tall against the light
of the sitting-room door; now he emptied the vials of his wrath and
contempt on Archibald Crane's reverend head; now he passed in the
darkness, singing gayly the _chanson de canot_. But more fondly she
saw him as he swept his hat to the ground on discovering her by the
guns, as he bent his impassioned eyes on her in the dim lamplight of
their first interview, as he tossed his hat aloft in the air when he
had understood that she wou