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Updated: June 27, 2025
Dazed in all the regions of her being, enshadowed in every vista of hope and scarce-tasted joy, she went quietly about the cabin, her mind a dark space in which there flashed sudden, reiterated visions, now McElroy's blue eyes, anxious and eager as he held up the doeskin dress at the door-sill, burning with fire and truth and passion in the glade in the forest, again tender and diffident what time they walked together to the gate to meet De Courtenay's messenger, and again it was that scene at the factory steps that haunted her, McElroy with his arms about Francette Moline, the grey husky crouching in the twilight.
But Francette, in whose face was an unbearable anguish, came swiftly and fell on her knees beside the bed, raising her eyes to his. "M'sieu!" she cried, with great labouring breaths. "Oh! M'sieu, I have come to confess! If there is in your good heart pity for one who has sinned beyond pardon, give it me, I pray, for love of the good God!" McElroy stared down at her in wonder. "Confess?
Merry laughter, turned as readily upon her, wafted back on the golden wind. Francette, her eyes flaming with all too great a fire, set a pan of cool water beneath the fevered muzzle of the husky and glanced, scowling, across her shoulder toward the factory. Five days had passed since the episode beside the stockade, and Bois DesCaut had said no word, of his property.
Very pretty she was in her pleading, the little Francette, with her misty eyes and the frank tears on her cheeks; and McElroy went to the river and filled his cap with water. This he poured into the open jaws and sopped over the blood-clotted head, wetting the limp feet and watching for the life she so bravely proclaimed.
Far apart and impersonal was McElroy now, only she loved him with that vast idolatry which seeks naught but the good of its idol. Even if he loved Francette he must be saved for that happiness. Therefore she knelt in a cockleshell alone on a rushing river and sped through, a wilderness into appalling danger. Such was the compelling power of that love which had come tardily to her.
Near the wall a group of girls hugged together, with Francette Moline in the centre; down by the canoes Pierre Garcon and Marc Dupre stood, the dark eyes of the latter watching every move, while at the door of the chief's lodge, directly before the fort and between it and the river, Edmonton Ridgar talked in low tones with Negansahima.
Near the gate a running crowd met them, for the tale had spread apace and wondering eyes looked on. Down to the southern wall where lived the family of Francette they went, and the factor laid Loup in the shade of the cabin. "If he lives, little one, he shall be yours," said he, "for he is worth a tender hand. We'll try its power."
She only knew the pain that had birth that night in De Seviere when she sought McElroy to disclaim the giver of the red flower and found him kissing the red-rose cheek of the little Francette. So went forth this little barque o' dreams. Meanwhile what of the two men who journeyed ahead?
He had twirled in his fingers the first little spray of the saskatoon, brought in by Henri Corlier to show how the woods were answering the call of the spring. "Why," he said, astounded beyond measure, "why, Francette, little one, what does this mean?" But Francette had lost her tongue and there was no answer from the bowed figure at his knees.
There was no rebellion in her, no hope of gain in what she did. Love was of her own soul alone, since that evening by the factory when she had seen the factor bend his head and kiss the little Francette. No more did she think of his words in the forest, no more did she dream of the wondrous glory of that first kiss.
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