Thus they stood for many seconds. Never for an instant did her
eyes leave his face, and Philip looked straight over her head into
that distant radiance of the forest mountains. It was she whose
emotions revealed themselves now. The blood came and went in her
cheeks. The soft lace at her throat rose and fell swiftly. In her
eyes and face there was a thing which she had not dared to reveal
to him before--a prayerful, pleading anxiety that was almost ready
to break into tears.
At last she had come to see and believe in the strength and wonder
of this man who had come to her from out of the North, and now he
stared over her head with that strange white look, as if the
things she had said had raised a mountain between them. She could
feel the throb of his arm on which her hand rested. All at once
her calm had deserted her. She had never known a man like this,
had never expected to know one; and in her face there shone the
gentle loveliness of a woman whose soul and not her voice was
pleading a great cause. It was pleading for her self. And then he
looked down.
"You want to go--now," she whispered. "I knew that you would."
"Yes, I want to go," he replied, and his two hands took hers, and
held them close to his breast, so that she felt the excited
throbbing of his heart. "I want to go--wherever you go. Perhaps in
those years of centuries ago there lived women like you to fight
and die for. I no longer wonder at men fighting for them as they
have sung their stories in books. I have nothing down in that
world which you have called civilization--nothing except the
husks of murdered hopes, ambitions, and things that were once
joys. Here I have you to love, to fight for. For you cannot tell
me that I must not love you, even though I swear to live up to
your laws of chivalry. Unless I loved you as I do there would not
be those laws."
"Then you will do all this for me--even to the end--when you must
sacrifice all of that for which you have struggled, and which you
have saved?"
"Yes."
"If that is so, then I trust you with my life and my honour. It is
all in your keeping--all."
Her voice broke in a sob. She snatched her hands from him, and
with that sob still quivering on her lips she turned and ran
swiftly to the little tent. She did not look back as she
disappeared into it, and Philip turned like one in a dream and
went to the summit of the bare rock ridge, from which he could
look over the quiet surface of the lake and a hundred square miles
of the unpeopled world which had now become so strangely his own.
An hour--a little more than that--had changed the course of his
life as completely as the master-strokes of a painter might have
changed the tones of a canvas epic. It did not take reason or
thought to impinge this fact upon him. It was a knowledge that
engulfed him overwhelmingly. So short a time ago that even now he
could not quite comprehend it all, he was alone out on the lake,
thinking of the story of the First Woman that Jasper had told him
down at Fond du Lac. Since then he had passed through a lifetime.
What had happened might well have covered the space of months--or
of years. He had met a woman, and like the warm sunshine she had
become instantly a part of his soul, flooding him with those
emotions which make life beautiful. That he had told her of this
love as calmly as if she had known of it slumbering within his
breast for years seemed to him to be neither unreal nor
remarkable.
He turned his face back to the tent, but there was no movement
there. He knew that there--alone--the girl was recovering from
the tremendous strain under which she had been fighting. He sat
down, facing the lake. For the first time his mental faculties
began to adjust themselves and his blood to flow less heatedly
through his veins. For the first time, too, the magnitude of his
promise--of what he had undertaken--began to impress itself upon
him. He had thought that in asking him to fight for her she had
spoken with the physical definition of that word in mind. But at
the outset she had plunged him into mystery. If she had asked him
to draw the automatic at his side and leap into battle with a
dozen of his kind he would not have been surprised. He had
expected something like that. But this other--her first demand
upon him! What could it mean? Shrouded in mystery, bound by his
oath of honour to make no effort to uncover her secret, he was to
accompany her back to her home AS HER HUSBAND! And after that--at
the end--he was to go out into the forest, and die--for her, for
all who had known him. He wondered if she had meant these words
literally, too. He smiled, and slowly his eyes scanned the lake.
He was already beginning to reason, to guess at the mystery which
she had told him he could not unveil if he lived a thousand years.
But he could at least work about the edges of it.
Suddenly he concentrated his gaze at a point on the lake three
quarters of a mile away. It was close to shore, and he was certain
that he had seen some movement there--a flash of sunlight on a
shifting object. Probably he had caught a reflection of light from
the palmate horn of a moose feeding among the water-lily roots. He
leaned forward, and shaded his eyes. In another moment his heart
gave a quicker throb. What he had seen was the flash of a paddle.
He made out a canoe, and then two. They were moving close in-
shore, one following the other, and apparently taking advantage of
the shadows of the forest. Philip's hand shifted to the butt of
his automatic. After all there might be fighting of the good old-
fashioned kind. He looked back in the direction of the tent.
The girl had reappeared, and was looking at him. She waved a hand,
and he ran down to meet her. She had been crying. The dampness of
tears still clung to her lashes; but the smile on her lips was
sweet and welcoming, and now, so frankly that his face burned with
pleasure, she held out a hand to him.
"I was rude to run away from you in that way," she apologized.
"But I couldn't cry before you. And I wanted to cry."
"Because you were glad, or sorry?" he asked.
"A little of both," she replied. "But mostly glad. A few hours ago
it didn't seem possible that there was any hope for me. Now--"
"There is hope," he urged.
"Yes, there is hope."
For an instant he felt the warm thrill of her fingers as they
clung tighter to his. Then she withdrew her hand, gently, smiling
at him with sweet confidence. Her eyes were like pure, soft
violets. He wanted to kneel at her feet, and cry out his thanks to
God for sending him to her. Instead of betraying his emotion, he
spoke of the canoes.
"There are two canoes coming along the shore of the lake," he
said. "Are you expecting some one?"
The smile left her lips. He was startled by the suddenness with
which the colour ebbed from her face and the old fear leapt back
into her eyes.
"Two? You are sure there are two?" Her fingers clutched his arm
almost fiercely. "And they are coming this way?"
"We can see them from the top of the rock ridge," he said. "I am
sure there are two. Will you look for yourself?"
She did not speak as they hurried to the bald cap of the ridge.
From the top Philip pointed down the lake. The two canoes were in
plain view now. Whether they contained three or four people they
could not quite make out. At sight of them the last vestige of
colour had left the girl's cheeks. But now, as she stood there
breathing quickly in her excitement, there came a change in her.
She threw back her head. Her lips parted. Her blue eyes flashed a
fire in which Philip in his amazement no longer saw fear, but
defiance. Her hands were clenched. She seemed taller. Back into
her cheeks there burned swiftly two points of flame. All at once
she put out a hand and drew him back, so that the cap of the ridge
concealed them from the lake.
"An hour ago those canoes would have made me run off into the
forest--and hide," she said. "But now I am not afraid! Do you
understand?"
"Then you trust me?"
"Absolutely."
"But--surely--there is something that you should tell me: Who they
are, what your danger is, what I am to do."
"I am hoping that I am mistaken," she replied. "They may not be
those whom I am dreading--and expecting. All I can tell you is
this: You are Paul Darcambal. I am Josephine, your wife. Protect
me as a wife. I will be constantly at your side. Were I alone I
would know what to expect. But--with you--they may not offer me
harm. If they do not, show no suspicion. But be watchful. Don't
let them get behind you. And be ready always--always--to use
that--if a thing so terrible must be done!" As she spoke she lay a
hand on his pistol. "And remember: I am your wife!"
"To live that belief, even in a dream, will be a joy as
unforgettable as life itself," he whispered, so low that, in
turning her head, she made as if she had not heard him.
"Come," she said. "Let us follow the coulee down to the lake. We
can watch them from among the rocks."
She gave him her hand as they began to traverse the boulder-strewn
bed of the creek. Suddenly he said:
"You will not suspect me of cowardice if I suggest that there is
not one chance in a hundred of them discovering us?"
"No," she replied, with a glance so filled with her confidence and
faith that involuntarily he held her hand closer in his own. "But
I want them to find us--if they are whom I fear. We will show
ourselves on the shore."
He looked at her in amazement before the significance of her words
had dawned upon him. Then he laughed.
"That is the greatest proof of your faith you have given me," he
said. "With me you are anxious to face your enemies. And I am as
anxious to meet them."
"Don't misunderstand me," she corrected him quickly. "I am praying
that they are not the ones I suspect. But if they are--why, yes, I
want to face them--with you."
They had almost reached the lake when he said:
"And now, I may call you Josephine?"
"Yes, that is necessary."
"And you will call me--"
"Paul, of course--for you are Paul Darcambal."
"Is that quite necessary?" he asked. "Is it not possible that you
might allow me to retain at least a part of my name, and call me
Philip? Philip Darcambal?"
"There really is no objection to that," she hesitated. "If you
wish I will call you Philip, But you must also be Paul--your
middle name, perhaps."
"In the event of certain exigencies," he guessed.
"Yes."
He had still assisted her over the rocks by holding to her hand,
and suddenly her fingers clutched his convulsively. She pointed to
a stretch of the open lake. The canoes were plainly visible not
more than a quarter of a mile away. Even as he felt her trembling
slightly he laughed.
"Only three!" he exclaimed. "Surely it is not going to demand a
great amount of courage to face that number, Josephine?"
"It is going to take all the courage in the world to face one of
them," she replied in a low, strained voice. "Can you make them
out? Are they white men or Indians?"
"The light is not right--I can't decide," he said, after a
moment's scrutiny. "If they are Indians--"
"They are friends," she interrupted. "Jean--my Jean Croisset--left
me hiding here five days ago. He is part French and part Indian.
But he could not be returning so soon. If they are white--"
"We will expose ourselves on the beach," he finished
significantly.
She nodded. He saw that in spite of her struggle to remain calm
she was seized again by the terror of what might be in the
approaching canoes. He was straining his eyes to make out their
occupants when a low cry drew his gaze to her.
"It is Jean," she gasped, and he thought that he could hear her
heart beating. "It is Jean--and the others are Indians! Oh, my
God, how thankful I am--"
She turned to him.
"You will go back to the camp--please. Wait for us there, I must
see Jean alone. It is best that you should do this."
To obey without questioning her or expostulating against his
sudden dismissal, he knew was in the code of his promise to her.
And he knew by what he saw in her face that Jean's return had set
the world trembling under her feet, that for her it was charged
with possibilities as tremendous as if the two canoes had
contained those whom she had at first feared.
"Go," she whispered. "Please go."
Without a word he returned in the direction of the camp.