Till the flames of amber and copper along the Gaspereau Ridge had temperately diminished to a lucidity of pale violet, I waited and watched. Then all at once the commotion in my bosom came to an icy stop.

A light, white form descended from the ridge to the ford. I needed not the black lace shawl about the head and shoulders to tell me it was she, before a feature or a line could be distinguished. The blood at every tingling finger-tip thrilled the announcement of her coming.

I grasped desperately at all I had planned to say—now slipping from me. I felt that she was intrenched in a fixed resolve; and I felt that not my life alone,—ready to become a very small matter,—but hers, her true life, depended upon my breaking that resolve. Yet how was I to conquer her, I who at sight of her was at her feet? I knew—with that inner knowledge by which I know God is—that she, the whitest of women, intended unwittingly 169a sin against her body in wedding a man unloved—that she, in my eyes the wisest, most clear-visioned of women, contemplated a folly beyond words. But how could I so far escape my reverence for her as to convict her of this folly and this sin?

But now all my thoughts, words, pleas, sprayed into air. She came—and I stepped into her path, whispering:

“Yvonne!”

She was almost within reach of my hand, had I stretched it out,—but I dared not touch her. She gave the faintest cry. Taken at so sudden a disadvantage, she had not time to mask herself, and her great eyes told for one heart-beat what I knew her lips would have denied. Her fingers locked and unlocked where they caught the black mantilla across her bosom. She stood for an instant motionless; then glanced back up the hill with a desperate fear.

“They will see you!” she half sobbed. “You will be caught and thrown into prison. Oh, hide yourself, hide at once!”

“Not without you,” I interrupted.

“Then with me!” she cried pantingly, and led the way, almost running, back of the willow, down a thread of a path, to a hidden place behind a bend of the stream. Glancing back at the last moment, I saw a squad of soldiers coming over the hill.

170As soon as she felt that I was safely out of sight and earshot, she turned and faced me with a sudden swift anger.

“Why have you done this? Why have you forced me to this?” she cried.

“Because I love you,” said I slowly. “Because”—

She drew herself up.

“You do not know,” said she, “what I have promised to Monsieur Anderson. I have promised to redeem my word to him when he can show you to me safe and well.”

I laughed with sheer joy.

“He shall wait long then,” said I. “Sooner than he should claim the guerdon I will fall upon my sword, though my will is, rather, to live for you, beloved.”

“Had the soldiers seen you and taken you,” said she, in her eagerness forgetting her disguise, “he would have been able to claim me to-morrow. They may yet take you. Oh, go, go at once!”

“They shall not take me. Now that I know you love me, Yvonne,—for you have betrayed it,—my life is, next to yours, the most precious thing to me in the world. I go at once to Quebec to settle my affairs and prepare a home for you. Then I will come,—it will be but in a month or two, when this trouble is overpast,—and I will take you away.”

171Her face, all her form, drooped with a sort of weariness, as if her will had been too long taxed.

“You will find me the wife of George Anderson,” she said faintly.

It was as if I had been struck upon the temples. My mouth opened, and shut again without words. First rage, then amazement, then despair, ran through me in hot surges.

“But—your promise—not till he could show me to you,” I managed to stammer.

“I gave it in good faith,” she said simply. “I can no longer hold him off by it, for I have seen you safe and well.”

“I am not safe, as you may soon see,” said I fiercely, “and not long shall I be well, as you will learn.” Then, perceiving that this was a sorry kind of threat, and little manly, I made haste to amend it.

“No, no,” I cried, “forget that! But stick to the letter of your promises, I beseech you. Why push to go back of that? Unless,” I added, with bitterness, “you want the excuse!”

She shuddered, and forgot to resent the brutality.

“Go!” she pleaded. “Save yourself—for my sake—Paul!” And her voice broke.

“That you may wed with the clearer conscience!” I went on, merciless in my pain.

She crouched down, a drear and pitiful figure, on the slope of sod, and wept silently, her hands 172over her eyes. I looked at her helplessly. I wanted to throw myself at her feet. Then the right thing seemed that I should gather her up into my arms—but I dared not touch her. At last I said, doubtfully:

“But—you love me!”

No answer.

“You do love me, Yvonne?”

She lifted her face, and with a ch............