Well he knew she was one of those women who, giving themselves, give wholly, reckoning not the cost; love of body and of soul, strength of arm in the daily task, the unmeasured devotion of a spirit that does not waver.  So precious the gift appeared to him that he dared not ask it.

“I am going down to Grand’Mere next week,” he said, almost in a whisper, “to work on the lumber-dam.  But I will never take a glass, not one, Maria!” Hesitating a moment he stammered out, eyes on the ground:  “Perhaps ... they have said something against me?”

“No.”

“It is true that I used to drink a bit, when I got back from the shanties and the drive; but that is all over now.  You see when a young fellow has been working in the woods for six months, with every kind of hardship and no amusement, and gets out to La Tuque or Jonquieres with all the winter’s wages in his pocket, pretty often he loses his head; he throws his money about and sometimes takes too much ...  But that is all over.”

“And it is also true that I used to swear.  When one lives all the time with rough men in the woods or on the rivers one gets the habit.  Once I swore a good deal, and the cure, Mr. Tremblay, took me to task because I said before him that I wasn’t afraid of the devil.  But there is an end of that too, Maria.  All the summer I am to be working for two dollars and a half a day and you may be sure that I shall save money.  And in the autumn there will be no trouble finding a job as foreman in a shanty, with big wages.  Next spring I shall have more than five hundred dollars saved, clear, and I shall come back... .”

Again he hesitated, and the question he was about to put took another form upon his lips.  “You will be here still...next spring?”

“Yes.”

And after the simple question and simpler answer they fell silent and so long remained, wordless and grave, for they had exchanged their vows.

CHAPTER VI

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

In July the hay was maturing, and by the middle of August it was only a question of awaiting a few dry days to cut and-store it.  But after many weeks of fine weather the frequent shifts of wind which are usual in Quebec once more ruled the skies.

Every morning the men scanned the heavens and took counsel together.  “The wind is backing to the sou’east.  Bad luck!  Beyond question it will rain again,” said Edwige Legare with a gloomy face.  Or it was old Chapdelaine who followed the movement of the white clouds that rose above the tree-tops, sailed in glad procession across the clearing, and disappeared behind the dark spires on the other side.

“If the nor’west holds till to-morrow we shall begin,” he announces.  But next day the wind had backed afresh, and the cheerful clouds of yesterday, now torn and shapeless, straggling in disorderly rout, seemed to be fleeing like the wreckage of a broken army.