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Updated: June 11, 2025
"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.
The business of the factory was brought to him nightly by Ridgar and the young clerk Gifford, and he would look over things and make a few suggestions, dispose of this and that as a matter of course and fall back into his lethargy. "What think you, M'sieu?" asked Rette anxiously, of Ridgar. "Is there naught to stir him from these hours of dulness?" "I know not, Rette. Would I did!
With a sigh of ineffable relief the sick man obeyed like a child, falling back into the shadows, though this time they were the blessed shades of the Vale of Healing Rest. Rette in a corner was wiping her eyes and saying, over and over, a prayer of thanksgiving for deliverance from death.
He turned briskly back and gave word to Jack de Lancy and his wife Rette to cook a great meal, also to see that the store-room was cleared sufficiently by the more orderly packing back of the goods to allow of five canoe-loads of men sleeping upon the floor.
Rette tolerated the two with a bad grace, for, since the day when Maren Le Moyne had stood at the door with her haggard beauty so wistfully sad, her sympathies had been all with the strange girl of Grand Portage. Light and flitting, sparkling as an elf, full to the brim of laughter and light, little Francette was playing the deepest game of her life.
When Francette raised her weeping eyes she saw McElroy's face above her like a mask. Its lips were open as if breath had suddenly been denied them, its wasted cheeks were blue, and its eyes stared down upon her in horror: "Oh! O God! Rette!" She screamed and sprang up, to run back and crouch against the empty chair beside the hearth.
"Poor little fool!" she whispered, "she is worn to a shadow with these weeks of weeping, and, now that he is back, will not give over hanging to his hand like one drowning." "Heed not. Is it in your heart, Rette, to do a deed of kindness for me, to keep a word of faith?" "With all my heart, Ma'amselle!" "Then," whispered Maren, apart from the clerk's listening ears, "take you this letter.
"Rette," she said plaintively, "will you leave me alone with M'sieu the factor for an hour? Think what you will," she added fiercely, as she saw the woman's look; "tell all the populace! I care not! Only give me one hour! Mon Dieu! A little space to pay the debt of life! Leave me, Rette, as you hope for Heaven!" And Rette, wondering and vaguely touched, complied.
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.
"She had brought you here, and Rette says the women hung off from her and laughed in corners, whispering and talking, and that her face was worn and greatly changed, as if with some deep sorrow." McElroy turned his head upon the pillow and weak tears smarted under his lids. "Me! It was I she saved when it was I who slew her lover! God forgive me, for I cannot forgive myself!" "Nay, boy, hush!
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