outside of her tent. She had
finished brushing her hair, and was plaiting it in a long braid. He had
wondered how they would meet that morning. His face flushed warm as he
approached her. The thrill of their kiss was still on his lips, and his
heart sent the memory of it burning in his eyes as he came up,
Josephine turned to greet him. She was pale and calm. There were dark
lines under her eyes, and her voice was steady and without emotion as
she said "Good morning." It was as if he had dreamed the thing that had
passed the night before. There was neither glow of tenderness, of
regret, nor of memory in her eyes. Her smile was wan and forced. He
knew that she was calling upon his chivalry to forget that one moment
before the door of her tent. He bowed, and said simply:

"I'm afraid you didn't sleep well, Josephine. Did I disturb you when I
stole out of camp?"

"I heard nothing," she replied. "Nothing but the cries of that terrible
bird out on the lake. I'm afraid I didn't sleep much."

The atmosphere of the camp that morning weighted Philip's heart with a
heaviness which he could not throw off. He performed his share of the
work with Jean, and tried to talk to him, but Croisset would only reply
to his most pointed remarks. He whistled. He shouted out a song back in
the timber as he cut an armful of dry birch, and he returned to Jean
and the girl laughing, the wood piled to his chin and the axe under his
arm. Neither showed that they had heard him. The meal was eaten in a
chilly silence that filled him with deepest foreboding. Josephine
seemed at ease. She talked with him when he spoke to her, but there
seemed now to be a mysterious restraint in every word that she uttered.
She excused herself before Jean and he were through, and went to her
tent. A moment later Philip rose and went down to his canoe.

In the rubber sack was the last of his tobacco. He was fumbling for it
when his heart gave a great jump. A voice had spoken softly behind him:

"Philip."

Slowly, unbelieving, he turned. It was Josephine. For the first time
she had called him by his name. And yet the speaking of it seemed to
put a distance between them, for her voice was calm and without
emotion, as she might have spoken to Jean.

"I lay awake nearly all of the night, thinking," she said. "It was a
terrible thing that we did, and I am sorry--sorry--"

In the quickening of her breath he saw how heroically she was fighting
to speak steadily to him.