RENUNCIATION
August drew to a close. The post clearing and the beach at Whale River
were again bare of tepee and lodge of the hunters of fur who had
repaired to their summer camps where fish were plentiful, to wait for
the great flights of snowy geese that the first frosts would drive south
from Arctic Islands. Daily the vitality and youth of Marcel were giving
him back his strength, and no remonstrance of the Bretons availed to
keep him quiet once his legs had mastered the distance to the
trade-house. Except for a slight pallor in the lean face and the loss of
weight, due to confinement, to his friends he was once more the Jean
Marcel they had known, but for weeks, a sudden twisting of his firm
mouth marking a twinge in the back, recalled only too vividly to them
all the knife-thrust of Lelac.
When, rid of the fever, and again conscious, Jean had become strong
enough to talk, he repeatedly voiced his gratitude to Julie for her
loyalty as nurse, but she invariably covered his mouth with her hand
refusing to hear him. Grown stronger and sitting up, he had often
repeated his thanks, raising his face to hers with a twinkle in his dark
eyes, in the hope that her manner of suppressing him might be continued;
but she had tantalizingly refused to humor the convalescent.
"I shall close your mouth no longer, Monsieur," she had said with a
grimace. "You will soon be the big, strong Jean Marcel we have always
known and must not expect to be a helpless baby forever. And now that
you can use your right arm, I shall no longer cut up your fish."
"But it is with great pain that I move my arm, Julie," he had protested
in a feeble effort to enlist her sympathy and so prolong the personal
ministrations he craved.
"Bah! When before has the great Jean Marcel feared pain? It is only a
ruse, Monsieur. I am too busy, now that you can help yourself, to treat
you as a child."
And so, reluctantly, Marcel had resigned himself to doing without the
aid of the nimble fingers of Julie Breton. The fierce bitterness in his
heart, which, before the fight on the beach with the Lelacs had made of
the days an endless torment, gave place, on his recovery, to a state of
mind more sane. Deep and lasting as was his wound, the realization of
the girl's devoted care of him had, during his convalescence, numbed the
old rawness. Gratitude and his innate manhood shamed Marcel into a
suppression of his grief and the showing of a brave face to Julie Breton
and the little world of Whale River. In his extremity she had stood
staunchly by his side. She had been his friend, indeed. He deserved no
more. And now in his prayers, for he was a devout believer in the
teachings of Pere Breton, he asked for her happiness.
One evening found three friends, Julie, Jean Marcel and Fleur, again
walking on the shore of the Great Whale in the mellow sunset. Romping
with puppy awkwardness, Fleur's progeny roved near them. The hush of an
August night was upon the land. Below, the young ebb ran silently
without ripple. Not a leaf stirred in the scrub edging the trail. The
dead sun, master artist, had limned the heavens with all the varied
magic of his palette, and the gray bay, often sullenly restless under
low-banked clouds, or blanketed with mist, now reached out, a shimmering
floor, to the rim of the world.
In silence the two, mute with the peace of the moment, watched the
heightening splendor of the western skies. Disdaining the alluring
scents of the neighboring scrub, which her puppies were exploring, Fleur
kept to Marcel's side where her nose might find his hand, for she had
not forgotten the days of their recent separation.
"What you did for me I can never repay." Marcel broke the silence, his
eyes on the White Bear Hills, sapphire blue on southern horizon.
The girl turned impatiently.
"Monsieur Jean Marcel, what I have done, I would do for any friend. I am
weary of hearing you speak of it. Have you no eyes for the sunset the
good God has given us? Let us speak of that."
He smiled as one smiles at a child.
"_Bien!_ We shall speak no more of it then, Ma'm'selle Breton. But this
you shall hear. I am sorry that I acted like a boy about M'sieu Wallace.
You will forgive me?"
"There is nothing to forgive," she answered. "I know you were hurt. It
was natural for you to feel the way you did."
"But I showed little of the man, Julie. I was hurt here," and he placed
his hand on his heart, "and I was a child."
She smiled wistfully, slowly shaking her head. "I fear you were very
like a man, Jean. But you are going away and I may not be here in the
spring--may not see you for a long time--so I want to tell you now how
proud I have been of you this summer."
He looked up quizzically.
"Yes, you have made a great name on the East Coast this summer, Jean
Marcel. When you were ill the Crees talked of little else--of your
travelling where no Indian had dared to go until you found the caribou;
your winning, over those terrible Lelacs and proving your innocence;
your fighting them with bare hands, because you knew no fear."
The face of Marcel reddened as the girl continued.
"You are brave and you have a great heart and a wise head, Jean Marcel;
some day you will be a factor of the Company. Wherever I may be, I shall
think of you and always be proud that you are my friend."
Inarticulate, numb with the torture of hopeless love, Marcel listened to
Julie Breton's farewell.