? Had she just the soul of the little girl
who had climbed trees, scaled rocks, and plunged headlong into the
river to swim like a fish!

"It is three lives," he said, with the persuasive voice of the tempter.

Three lives! And among them her best friend! Something rose in her
throat, and she thought she was dying.

"And if I cannot?" in a tone of desperate anguish.

"Then we must start homeward at once. When the Hurons have whet their
appetite with their hellish pleasure, it is not easily satisfied. They
will look about for more fuel to add to the flames. So we must decide. I
cannot risk my own liberty for months for nothing. It will not make M.
Destournier's death pang easier."

"Oh, go away, go away!" she almost shrieked, but the sorrow in her voice
took off the harshness. "Let me think. I do not love you! I might run
away. I might drown myself. I might not be able to keep my promise."

"I should love you so much that you would not want to break it. Ah, I
could trust you, since you love no one else that you desire to marry."

She dropped on the ground and hid her face, too much stunned even to
cry. "Three lives" kept singing in her ears. Was she not selfish and
cruel? O God, what could she do!

"You know even the Sieur and the priests have approved of these mixed
marriages, so there would be no voice raised against it. The children
would belong to the Church and be reared in the ways of wisdom and
honor. In my way I am well born. I could take you to Paris, where you
would be well received. I have had some excellent training. Oh, it would
be no disgrace."

They were calling to him from the group. He turned away. His intense
love for her, his little understanding of a woman's soul, his passionate
nature, not yet adjusted to the higher civilization, could not
understand and appreciate the cruelty.

When he came back her small hands were nervously beating the dried turf.
He could not see her face.

"They have decided to go at once," he exclaimed. "De Loie says there is
no time to lose."

"I shall stay here and die," she said.

"That will not save any one's life."

Oh, that was the pity of it!

She rose with a strained white face. She looked like some of the
beautiful carvings he had seen abroad. Not even anguish could make her
unlovely.

"If you will go," she began hoarsely, and she seemed to strain her very
soul to utter the words, "and bring back M. Destournier, and the others,
I will marry you--no