Tears filled her eyes; her pale, smooth cheeks were wet.

“Lois is still asleep,” she said.  “Come quietly with her mother and you shall see her where she sleeps.”

Cap in hand, coon-tail dragging, I entered the single room on silent, moccasined feet, set my rifle in a corner, and went over to the couch of tumbled fawn-skin and silky pelts.

As I stood looking down at the sweetly flushed face, her mother lifted my brier-scarred hand and pressed her lips to it; and I, hot and crimson with happiness and embarrassment, found not a word to utter.

“My little daughter’s champion!” she murmured.  “Brave, and pure of heart!  Ah, Monsieur, chivalry indeed is of no nation!  It is a broader nobility which knows neither race nor creed nor ancestry nor birth....  How the child adores you!”

“And you, Madame.  Has ever history preserved another such example of dauntless resolution and filial piety as Lois de Contrecoeur has shown us all?”

Her mother’s beautiful head lifted a little: 

“The blood of France runs in her veins, Monsieur.”  Then, for the first time, a pale smile touched her pallour.  “Quand meme!  No de Contrecoeur tires of endeavour while life endures....  Twenty-two years, Monsieur.  Look upon her!...  And for one and twenty years I have forced myself to live in hope of this moment!  Do you understand?” She made a vague gesture and shook her head.  “Nobody can understand—­ not even I, though I have lived the history of many ages.”

Still keeping my hand in hers, she stood there silent, looking down at her daughter.  Then, silently, she knelt beside her on the soft fawnskin, drawing me gently to my knees beside her.

“And you are to take her from me,” she murmured.

“Madame——­”

“Hush, soldier!  It must be.  I give her to you in gratitude—­ and tears....  My task is ended; yours at last begins.  Out of my arms you shall take her as she promised.  What has been said shall be done this day in the Vale Yndaia....  May God be with us all.”

“Madame—­ when I take her—­ one arm of mine must remain empty—­ as half her heart would be—­ if neither may hold you also to the end.”

She bent her head; her grey eyes closed, and I saw the tears steal out along the long, soft lashes.

“Son, if you should come to love me——­”

“Madame, I love you now.”

She covered her face with her slim hands; I drew it against my shoulder.  A moment later Lois unclosed her eyes, looked up at us; then rose to her knees in her white shift and put both bare arms around her mother’s neck.  And, kneeling so, turned her head, offering her untouched lips to me.  Thus, for the first time in our lives, we kissed each other.

There was milk, ash-bread, corn, and fresh laid eggs for all our party when Lois went to the door and called, in a clear, sweet voice: 

* “Nai!  Mayaro!  Yon-kwa-ken-nison!”