It is not proper for you to go alone. I have told you of this before.
You are a young woman, and with so many men roaming about, it is too
bold and unsafe, as well."

"I am never in any danger."

"You do not know. But then it is not proper."

Rose made no reply to that. For some time miladi had not seemed to care
where she went. And she often did have Pani with her.

There was a rather awkward silence. Rose was meditating an escape. Then
miladi began, in so severe a tone that every nerve within her quivered.

"Yes, you were needed yesterday afternoon. M. Boulle came in and laid
before me a grave matter. You two seem to have wandered about in a
manner that would have scandalized a more civilized place, but there
appear to be no restrictions in this wilderness of savages. I have not
been able to watch over you as I should, and Wanamee does not
understand. Out of all this freedom, so unusual to a French maid, has
come a proposal of marriage, and this morning you are to be betrothed."

"I? But I have not consented, Madame. I told M. Boulle yesterday that I
could not marry him, that I did not want to marry any one."

"You will consider. Remember you are a foundling, with no name of
ancestry, no parents, that a man might refer to with pride when children
grow up about the family altar. It is not a thing to be quite satisfied
with, Mademoiselle, or proud of," and there was a sting in her tone.
"This man loves you so well that he is willing to overlook it and offer
you honorable marriage, which but few men would do. We have accepted him
for you. He returns to Tadoussac to-day, but the marriage day will be
settled and though you cannot have what I would wish, we will do our
best."

The girl's face had changed from scarlet to deathly whiteness. Something
inside of her seemed to spring into a flame of knowledge, of womanhood,
and burn up grandly. That subtle chemistry that works in the girl's
soul, and transforms it, sometimes slowly, was in her case like the
sudden bursting of a bud into flowering. She was her own. She had said
this before; in a way, she had always felt it; but now it was graven
with a point of steel.

"Madame," she began, in a tone she vainly strove to render steady, "only
yesterday I told M. Boulle I could not take the love he proffered me,
and make any return. And then I felt on a certain equality. I understand
better now. I am nameless, a rose of the wilderness, a foundling, as you
said. So I will m