He almost failed to hear the last words, and he made no effort to reply.  He kept his canoe nearer to Jean’s, so that frequently they were running side by side.  In the quick fall of the early northern night the sun was becoming more and more of a red haze in the sky as it sank farther toward the western forests.  Josephine had changed her position, so that she now sat facing the bow of the canoe.  She leaned a little forward, her elbows resting in her lap, her chin tilted in the cup of her hands, looking steadily ahead, and for a long time no sound but the steady dip, dip, dip of the two paddles broke the stillness of their progress.  Scarcely once did Philip take his eyes from her.  Every turn, every passing of shadow and light, each breath of wind that set stirring the shimmering tresses of her hair, made her more beautiful to him.  From red gold to the rich and lustrous brown of the ripened wintel berries he marked the marvellous changing of her hair with the setting of the sun.  A quick chill was growing in the air now and after a little he crept forward and slipped a light blanket about the slender shoulders.  Even then Josephine did not speak, but looked up at him, and smiled her thanks.  In his eyes, his touch, even his subdued breath, were the whispers of his adoration.

Movement roused Jean from his Indian-like silence.  As Philip moved back, he called: 

“It is four o’clock, M’sieur.  We will have darkness in an hour.  There is a place to camp and tepee poles ready cut on the point ahead of us.”

Fifteen minutes later Philip ran his canoe ashore close to Jean Croisset’s on a beach of white sand.  He could not help seeing that, from the moment she had answered his question out on the lake, a change had come over Josephine.  For a short time that afternoon she had risen from out of the thing that oppressed her, and once or twice there had been almost happiness in her smile and laughter.  Now she seemed to have sunk again under its smothering grip.  It was as if the chill and dismal gloom of approaching night had robbed her cheeks of colour, and had given a tired droop to her shoulders as she sat silently, and waited for them to make her tent comfortable.  When it was up, and the blankets spread, she went in and left them alone, and the last glimpse that he had of her face left with Philip a cameo-like impression of hopelessness that made him want to call out her name, yet held him speechless.  He looked closely at Jean as they put up their own tent, and for the first time he saw that the mask had fallen from the half-breed’s face, and that it was filled with that same mysterious hopelessness and despair.  Almost roughly he caught him by the shoulder.

“See here, Jean Croisset,” he cried impatiently, “you’re a man.  What are you afraid of?”

“God,” replied Jean so quietly that Philip dropped his hand from his shoulder in astonishment.  “Nothing else in the world am I afraid of, M’sieur!”