"Sit still, for the love of God, sit still!" Andre fairly shrieked at
me.
"It's all right, Andre," I said quietly, to calm him.
"They say the lake has no bottom just here, mademoiselle--and if I had
lost you for him--" he muttered, and continued to mutter, easing
himself of his fright by swearing softly. He soon regained his
composure; but was still frowning when I glanced behind me.
What had this searchlight shown me?
Just this:--that "heureuse" is French for happy--and the capital made
it a proper name, "Happy". This word told me its own story. According
to what Cale had said--and I had all detailed information from him--no
trace of my mother was found although detectives had been put to work.
She had simply dropped out of sight, not to come to the surface until
that night in December when she tried to end her young life from the
North River pier. Was she not for a part of that year and three months
here in these wilds?
Oh, what a far, far cry it must have been from this Canadian wilderness
not made by man, to that other hundreds of miles away--that great
metropolis, man made!
We paddled for the rest of the way in silence.
That evening we sat late around the camp fire, and before we separated
for the night Mr. Ewart said, turning to me:
"I want a promise from you, Miss Farrell."
"What is it?"
"Caution, caution!" said the Doctor.
"That you will make no more _solitude a deux_ excursions, as John calls
them, with old Andre. He is old, despite his seeming strength, and his
age is beginning to tell on him. I see that he has failed much since
last year."
"You 're right there, Gordon; she should not risk it with him," said
Jamie, emphatically. "I 've noticed the change from last year when I
have been out with him on the trails. Why, he fell asleep only the
other day with his line in his hand and his bait in the water!"
"Did you see that?" said Mr. Ewart. "It happened, too, the other day
with me. I was amazed, but not so much as I was last week when we were
in the woods making the north trail. He sat down to smoke and,
actually, his pipe dropped from his hand. I trod out the fire or there
would have been a blaze. Apparently he was asleep. I watched him for
an hour, when he seemed to come to himself. It was not a sleep; it was
a lethargy. You say it is often so, John--the beginning of the end.
We must not let him know anything of this--dear old Andre!"
"He is already immortalized in that Odyssey of yours, Jamie. People
won't forget him, for he lives again in that." The Doctor spoke with
deep feeling.
"And your promise, Miss Farrell?"
"Since you insist, yes. But it is hard to give it; we have had so much
pleasure together Andre and I; we have been great chums--dear old
Andre!" Unconsciously I echoed Mr. Ewart's words.
I am sure that was the thought of all of us; our good nights were not
the merry ones of the last two months. We were saddened at the thought
that he might not be with us again.
For a moment or two Mr. Ewart and I stood alone by the embers of the
camp fire; he was covering them with ashes.
"Thank you for your promise. I don't care about experiencing another
hour like that when I was crossing the lake this afternoon, with a
young cyclone on its way. I have lost so much of life--I cannot lose
you."
His speech was abrupt; his voice low, but tense with emotion.
"There will be no need of losing me. I will keep my promise." I spoke
lightly, but I knew he knew the significance of my words, as I knew
that of his, for with those words I gave myself to him. I felt
intuitively that he would not speak of love to me, until he had broken
completely with that past to which in thought he was still, in part, a
slave. I was willing to wait patiently for his entire emancipation.