Eva was sitting there on a rock, huddling a shawl around her.

“Oh, Adam Macgregor!” she began, in a low voice, “and do you condescend to bring your wraith back to me at last?”

“It’s nothing but my wraith,” said Adam, lifting his eggs and butter and milk, and stepping from the boat.  “The mon in me died aboot noon.”

Eva walked along by his side to the cool-box, where he deposited his load.

“What is the matter with you, laddie, that you look and talk so strangely?”

“Oh, naught,” said Adam, turning and facing her.  “I but saw you kissing Louis Satanette on the hill to-day.”

III.

THE FLAMING SWORD.

The changes which passed over her face were half concealed by the twilight.  She was grieved, indignant, and frightened, but over all other expressions lurked the mischievous mirth of a bad child.

“I meant to tell you about it,” she said.

“Hearken,” said Adam, with a fierce stare.  “I’ve stayed out on the lake all day, and I’m quiet.  At first I wasn’t.  But when he came by I gave him nothing but a good word.”

“I wish you’d scolded him instead of me,” said Eva, propping her back against the table and puckering her lips.

“He did naught,” said Adam, “but what any man would do that got lave.  It’s you that gave him lave that are to blame.”

“Don’t be so serious about a little thing,” put forth Eva.  “We just walked over to the counterfeiters’ hole, and coming back we picked strawberries, and he teased me like a girl, and caught hold of me and kissed me.  We’ve been such good friends in camp.  I think it’s this easy, wild life made me do it.”

“She’ll blame the very sky over her instead of taking blame to herself,” ground out Adam from between his jaws.  “I sat in me boat below and saw you arch your head and look at him ways that I remember.  My God! why did you make this woman so false, and yet so sweet that a mon canna help loving her in spite o’ his teeth?”

“Because I’d die if folks didn’t love me,” burst out Eva, with a sob.  “And if men can’t help loving me, what do you blame me for?”

“What right have you to breathe such a word when you’re married to me?”

“But I’m not used to being married yet,” pleaded Eva.  “And I forgot, this once.”

“It’s once and for all,” said Adam, “You’ll never be to me what you were before.  Is it the English-Canadian way to bring up women to kiss every comer?”

“I didn’t kiss anybody but Louis Satanette,” maintained Eva, “and I didn’t really want to kiss him”

“Never mind,” said Adam.  “Don’t trouble your butterfly soul about it.”  And he turned away and walked toward the tent.

“I’ll not love you if you say such awful things to me,” she flashed after him.

“Ye can’t take the breeks off a Hielandman,” he replied, facing about, “Ye never loved me.  Not as I loved you.  And it’s no loss I’ve met, if I could but think it.”