e in her red
mackinaw and corduroy trousers. A pair of snowshoes hung over her
back, and her hand gripped a short-handled broad axe. Her great eyes
turned from Crossman to the Cure, and across her crimson mouth crept
her slow smile. The Cure sprang to his feet at sight of her, his face
went white, and the lines from nose to lips seemed to draw in.

"Aurore!" he exclaimed; "Aurore!"

"_Oui, mon pere_," she drawled. "It is Aurore." She struck a
provocative pose, her hand on her hip, her head thrown back, while her
eyes changed colour as alexandrite in the sun.

The Cure turned on Crossman. "What is this woman to you?"

Her eyes defied him. "Tell him," she jeered. "What _am_ I to you?"

"She is here with Antoine Marceau, the log-brander," Crossman answered
unsteadily. "She takes care of our cabin, Jakapa's and mine."

"Is that _all_?" the Priest demanded.

Her eyes challenged him. What, indeed, was she to him?
What _was_ she? From the moment he had followed her into the boreal
night, with its streaming lights of mystery and promise, she had held
his imagination and his thoughts.

"Is that _all_?" the Priest insisted.

"You insult both this girl and me," Crossman retorted, stung to sudden
anger.

"_Dieu merci_!" the Cure made the sign of the cross as he spoke. "As
for this woman, send her away. She is _not_ the wife of Antoine
Marceau; she is not married--she _will_ not be."

In spite of himself a savage joy burned in Crossman's veins. She was
the wife of no man; she was a free being, whatever else she was.

"I do not have to marry," she jeered. "That is for the women that only
one man desires--or perhaps two--like some in your parish, _mon
pere_."

"She is evil," the Priest continued, paying no attention to her
sneering comment. "I know not what she is, nor who. One night, in
autumn, in the dark of the hour before morning, she was brought to me
by some Indians. They had found her, a baby, wrapped in furs, in an
empty canoe, rocking almost under the Grande Falls. But I tell you,
and to my sorrow, I _know_, she is evil. She knows not God, nor God
her. You, whose soul is sick, flee her as you would the devil! Aurore,
the Dawn! I named her, because she came so near the morning. Aurore!
Ah, God! She should be named after the blackest hour of a witch's
Sabbath!"

She laughed. It was the first time Crossman had heard her laugh--a
deep, slow, far-away sound, more like an eerie echo.

"_He_ has a better name for