Neither woman replied.  Madame’s thought went back rebelliously to the morning.  “To the ends of the world,” the Chevalier had said.  She shook her head wearily.  It was all over.  She cared not whither these savages took her.  Mazarin would not find her indeed!  What a life had been hers!  Only twenty-two, and nothing but unhappiness, disillusion, with here and there an hour of midsummer’s madness.  And that note she had written!  The thought of it sustained her spirits.  By now he knew all.  She shut her eyes and pictured in fancy his pain and astonishment and chagrin.  It was exhilarating.  She would have liked to cry.

The Seneca chief spoke softly, commanding silence, and the canoes glided noiselessly along the southern shores of the great river.  The sun sank presently, and night became prodigal with her stars.  Occasionally there was the sound of gurgling water as some brook poured into the river, or the whisper of stirring branches lightly swept by the feathered heads of the Indians.  Aside from these infrequent sounds, the silence was vast and imposing.  Anne, with her head in madame’s lap, wept bitterly but without sound.  She was a girl again; the dignity of womanhood was gone, being no longer in the shadow of the convent walls.

Brother Jacques saw nothing in the velvet glooms but the figure of Monsieur le Marquis as it lay that night after the duel.

Whenever the Senecas came to a habitation, they drew up the canoes and carried them overland, far distant into the forest, making a half-circuit of the point.  During these portages the fatigue of the women was great.  Several times Anne broke down, unable to proceed.  Sometimes the savages waited patiently for her to recover, at other times they were cruel in their determination to go on.  Once Brother Jacques took Anne’s slight figure in his strong arms and carried her a quarter of a mile.  She hung upon his neck with the content of a weary child, and the cool flesh of her cheek against his neck disturbed the tranquillity of his dreams for many days to come.

Madame, on her part, struggled on without complaint.  If she stumbled and fell, no sound escaped her lips.  She regained her feet without assistance.  Madame’s was a great spirit; she knew the strength of resignation.

It was after two o’clock when the Iroquois signified their intention of pitching camp till dawn.  They were far away from the common track now.  The last portage had carried them across several small streams.  They were in the heart of the forest.  All night Brother Jacques sat at the side of the women, guarding with watchful eyes.  How the spirit and the flesh of this man warred!  And all the while his face in the filtered moonlight was marbled and set of expression.  He was made of iron, constitutionally; his resolution, tempered steel.

Anne slept, but not so madame.  She listened and listened:  to the stir of the leaves, to the dim murmur of running water, to the sighs of the night wind, to the crackling of a dry twig when Anne turned uneasily in her sleep.  She listened and listened, but the sound she hungered for never came.