With her arms full of dead sticks she came back to the canoe,—­and face to face with Marc Dupre.  His canoe lay at the cove’s edge and his eyes were anguished in a white face.

“Ma’amselle,” he said simply, “I came.”

No word was ready on the maid’s lips.  She stood and looked at him, with the little sticks in her arms, and suddenly she saw what was in his eyes, what made his lips ashen under the weathered tan.

It was the same thing that had changed for her the face of the waters and the wood.  She had learned in that moment to read a man better than she had read aught in her life beside the sign of leaf and wind.

“Oh, M’sieu!” she cried out sharply; “God forbid!”

The youth came forward and took the sticks from her, dropping them on the ground and holding both her hands in a trembling clasp.

“Forbid?” he said and his voice quivered; “Ma’amselle, I love you.  Though my heart is full of dread, I am at your feet.  By the voice of my own soul I hear the cry of yours.  We are both past help, it seems, Ma’amselle,-yet am I that stone to your foot which we pledged yonder by the stockade wall.  You will let me go the long trail with you?  You will give me to be your stay in this?  You will let me do all a man can do to help you take the factor from the Nakonkirhirinons?”

The infinite sadness in Dupre’s voice was as a wind across a harp of gold, and it struck to Maren’s heart with unbearable pain.

Her eyes, looking straight into his, filled slowly with tears, and his white face danced grotesquely before her vision.

“M’sieu,” she said quite simply, “I would to God it had been given me to love you.  We have ever seen eye to eye save in that wherein we should have.  And I know of nothing dearer than this love you have given me.  If you would risk your life and more, M’sieu, I shall count your going one of the gifts of God.”

“I cannot ask you to return, Ma’amselle,—­too well do I know you,—­nor to consider all you must risk for, this,—­life and death and the certain slander of the settlement,—­though by all the standards of manhood I should do so.  The heart in me is faithful echo of your own.  This trail must be travelled,—­therefore we travel it together.  And, oh, Ma’amselle!  Think not of my love as that of a man!  Rather do I adore the ground beneath your foot, worship at the shrine of your pure and gentle spirit!  See!”

With all the prodigal fire of his wild French blood, the youth dropped on his knee and, catching the fringe on the buckskin garment, pressed it to his lips.

For once Maren, unused to tears, could speak no word.

She only drew him up, her grip like a man’s upon his wrists, and turned to the making of the fire.

Dupre drew up his canoe and took a snared wild hen from the bow.

* * * * * * * * *

“I think, Ma’amselle,” said the youth when Maren awaked some hours later from a heavy sleep, during which Dupre had killed the little smoke of the fire and kept silent watch from the shore, “that we had best leave your canoe here and take mine.  It is much the better craft.”