waken him. But
these periods of apprehension were, in themselves, mere shadows thrown
for a moment upon his happiness. Again and again the subconscious force
within him pounded home to his physical brain the great truth, that it
was all extraordinarily real.

It was Marette who made him doubt himself at times. He could not, quite
yet, comprehend the fulness of that love which she had given him. More
than ever, in the glory of this love that had come to them she was like
a child to him. It seemed to him in the first hours of the morning that
she had forgotten yesterday, and the day before, and ill the days
before that. She was going home. She whispered that to him so often
that it became a little song in his brain. Yet she told him nothing of
that home, and he waited, knowing that the fulfilment of her promise
was not far away. And there was no embarrassment in the manner of her
surrender when he held her in his arms, and she held her face up, so
that he could kiss her mouth and look into her glowing, lovely eyes.
What he saw was the flush of a great happiness, the almost childish
confession of it along with the woman's joy of possession. And he
thought of Kedsty, and of the Law that was rousing itself into life
back at Athabasca Landing.

And then she ran her fingers through his own and told him to wait, and
ran into the cabin and came out a moment later with her brush; and
after that she seated herself at the fulcrum of the big sweep and began
to brush out her hair in the sun.

"I'm glad you love it, Jeems," she said.

She unbound the thick braid and let the silken strands of it run
caressingly between her fingers. She smoothed it out, brushed it until
it was more beautiful than he had ever seen it, in that glow of the
sun. She held it up so that it rippled out in shimmering cascades about
her--and then, suddenly, Kent saw the short tress from which had been
clipped the rope of hair that he had taken from Kedsty's neck. And as
his lips tightened, crushing fiercely the exclamation of his horror,
there came a trembling happiness from Marette's lips, scarcely more
than the whisper of a song, the low, thrilling melody of _Le Chaudiere_.

Her arms reached up, and she drew his head down to her, so that for a
time his visions were blinded in that sweet smother of her hair.

The intimacy of that day was in itself like a dream. Hour after hour
they drifted deeper into the great North. The sun shone. The
forest-walled sho