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Would you sleep the whole night away as well as the day?" He came to the bed and took McElroy's hand tenderly in his, while he gave Rette a warning glance. McElroy tried to rise, but only his head obeyed, lifting itself a bit from the pillow to fall helplessly back. He looked up at Ridgar with a look that cut that good man's heart, so full was it of wild entreaty and piteous grief.
While he stood so, there was a rustle of women behind him and voices that bespoke more eager eyes for the Indians, and he glanced over his shoulder. Micene Bordoux and Mora LeClede approached, and between them walked Maren Le Moyne. McElroy's heart pounded hard with a quick excitement as he saw the listless droop of the face under the black braids and stopped with a prescience of disaster.
Southward, presently, up the rivers hurrying to the great bay at the north, and at last out upon the broad waters of Winnipeg, and never for an hour had McElroy's wandering soul come back to his suffering body.
Now she would learn the camp and the safest side of it, the place of the captives and a way of escape. With thought and eager plan she pushed from her mind the look of McElroy's body. She would In the darkness she stopped with inheld breath. Her groping foot had touched an object, a soft object that stirred and rolled over on its side and presently sat up.
McElroy's face was grave, lips tight, eyes narrow, and forehead furrowed with the thought he strove in vain to make connected. Suddenly every shade of colour drained out of his countenance, leaving it white as the virgin slab behind. On the outskirts of the concourse, just at the edge of shadow and light, Edmonton Ridgar stood apart and the look on his face was of mortal agony.
She stopped at the open door and looked within that little room. Here were the things of McElroy's life, the plain chairs, the table, the shelf with its books, the chest against the western wall, and on the bed, pulled out to get the breeze, lay the man himself prone in his splendid strength.
Alfred de Courtenay settled himself gracefully in one of McElroy's chairs and smiled across at his host with a twinkle in his laughing eyes.
McElroy's Christmas sermon, and it presently transpired that, whether in town or country, she made it a point to attend services. Abner, who for some dim reason of his own had expected little from the wife of Leverett Whyland, put down as mere calumnies the reports that made her "fashionable."
Her eyes went to McElroy's face and then to that of the cavalier leaning forward between his swinging curls, and both men saw the shine that was like light behind black marble, so mystic was it and thrilling, beginning to flicker in them. "Bravo!" cried De Courtenay, his brilliant face aglow with the splendid hazard. "Bravo!
"Come in, Ma'amselle," whispered Rette from her motherly heart, drawn by sight of her haggard face, but Maren's eyes had fallen on a little figure huddled on the far side of the bed with its face buried against McElroy's left hand. She knew the small head running over with black curls. "Nay, Rette," she said quietly, "I would speak a moment with you." The woman came out and closed the door.
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