appealed to him. He had been charmed by Madame
Giffard from the very first meeting with her, but she was another man's
wife, and she loved her husband. The pretty coquetries were a part of
the civilized world over in France and meant only a graceful desire to
please. Then in her sorrow he pitied her profoundly, and felt that he
owed her the highest and most sacred duty.

But as he studied Rose now, and thought of a suggested lover in Pierre
Gaudrion, his whole soul rose in revolt. And the other thought of
sending her away was equally distasteful. Why, she was the light and
sweetness of the settlement. In a different fashion, she captured the
hearts of the Indian women, and taught them the love of home-making,
roused in some of them intelligence. How did she come by it? There was
Wanamee.

He did not dream that he had awakened a desire for knowledge in the
girl's breast and brain. But she had gone beyond him in the lore of the
sea and the sky, and the romance of the trees, that to him were
promising materials for houses and boats. They were her friends. She
could translate the soft murmur that ran through their leaves, or the
sweet, wild whistle of the wind that blew in from the river or down from
the high hills,--from the ice and snow of the fur country. And sometimes
he had seen her run races with the foaming river, where it whirled and
eddied and fretted against a spur of the mighty rocks. All her life,
from the day he found her on the rocks, seemed to pass before him in one
great flash. He exulted that she belonged to no one, that he had the
best right to her. He could not have told why. Heaven had denied him a
child of his very own, and he had learned that miladi considered babies
a wearisome burthen, fit only for peasants and Indian women.

Did the saintly and beautiful Helene think so as well? he wondered. He
had learned a good deal about womankind since his marriage, but he made
a grand mistake, he had learned only about one woman; and she was not
the noblest of her kind.

Rose turned suddenly and saw him in that half-waiting attitude. There
was little introspection, or analysis, in those days; people simply
lived, felt without understanding. She had outgrown her first feeling of
aversion. In a vague fashion she realized that miladi needed protection
and care that no one but M. Destournier could give her. She was sorry
she could not ramble about, that she never brightened up, and sung and
danced any more. An