Ten days went by, Dr. McLeod lingered at Lac du Sablier, and Janet was still in bed.  Even in this life-giving air she did not seem to grow stronger.  Sometimes, when the child was sleeping in its basket on the sunny porch, Mrs. Maturin read to her; but often when she was supposed to rest, she lay gazing out of the open window into silver space listening to the mocking laughter of the loons, watching the ducks flying across the sky; or, as evening drew on, marking in the waters a steely angle that grew and grew—­the wake of a beaver swimming homeward in the twilight.  In the cold nights the timbers cracked to the frost, she heard the owls calling to one another from the fastnesses of the forest, and thought of life’s inscrutable mystery.  Then the child would be brought to her.  It was a strange, unimagined happiness she knew when she felt it clutching at her breasts, at her heart, a happiness not unmixed with yearning, with sadness as she pressed it to her.  Why could it not remain there always, to comfort her, to be nearer her than any living thing?  Reluctantly she gave it back to the nurse, wistfully her eyes followed it....

Twice a week, now, Delphin and Herve made the journey to Saint Hubert, and one evening, after Janet had watched them paddling across the little bay that separated the camp from the outlet’s mouth, Mrs. Maturin appeared, with an envelope in her hand.

“I’ve got a letter from Brooks Insall, Janet,” she said, with a well-disguised effort to speak naturally.  “It’s not the first one he’s sent me, but I haven’t mentioned the others.  He’s in Silliston—­and I wrote him about the daughter.”

“Yes,” said Janet.

“Well—­he wants to come up here, to see you, before we go away.  He asks me to telegraph your permission.”

“Oh no, he mustn’t, Mrs. Maturin!”

“You don’t care to see him?”

“It isn’t that.  I’d like to see him if things had been different.  But now that I’ve disappointed him—­hurt him, I couldn’t stand it.  I know it’s only his kindness.”

After a moment Augusta Maturin handed Janet a sealed envelope she held in her hand.

“He asked me to give you this,” she said, and left the room.  Janet read it, and let it fall on the bedspread, where it was still lying when her friend returned and began tidying the room.  From the direction of the guide’s cabin, on the point, came the sounds of talk and laughter, broken by snatches of habitant songs.  Augusta Maturin smiled.  She pretended not to notice the tears in Janet’s eyes, and strove to keep back her own.

“Delphin and Herve saw a moose in the decharge,” she explained.  “Of course it was a big one, it always is!  They’re telling the doctor about it.”

“Mrs. Maturin,” said Janet, “I’d like to talk to you.  I think I ought to tell you what Mr. Insall says.”

“Yes, my dear,” her friend replied, a little faintly, sitting down on the bed.