"Oh, yes," he answered; "but I"ll get there, and I shall tell it all to you at Quebec--at Quebec in August. It will be a brave tale! You will be there--surely?"
"Yes," said the girl, softly; "I will be there--surely."
"Good! Feel the wind on your cheek? It is from the Southland, where I am going. I have ventured--and I have not lost! It is something not to lose, when one has ventured against many. They have my goods--but I--"
"You?" repeated Virginia, as he hesitated.
"Ah, I don"t go back empty-handed!" he cried. Her heart stood still, then leaped in antic.i.p.ation of what he would say. Her soul hungered for the words, the words that should not only comfort her, but should be to her the excuse for many things. She saw him--shadowy, graceful against the dim gray of the river and sky--lean ever so slightly toward her. But then he straightened again to his paddle, and contented himself with repeating merely: "Quebec--in August, then."
The canoe grated. Ned Trent with an exclamation drove his paddle into the clay.
"Lucky the bottom is soft here," said he; "I did not realize we were so close ash.o.r.e."
He drew the canoe up on the shelving beach, helped Virginia out, took his rifle, and so stood ready to depart.
"Leave the canoe just where we got in," he advised; "it is around the point, you see, and that may fool them a little."
"You are going," she said, dully. Then she came close to him and looked up at him with her wonderful eyes. "Good-by."
"Good-by," said he.
Was this to be all? Had he nothing more to tell her? Was the word to lack, the word she needed so much? She had given herself unreservedly into this man"s hands, and at parting he had no more to say to her than "Good-by." Virginia"s eyes were tearful, but she would not let him know that. She felt that her heart would break.
"Well, good-by," he said again after a moment, which he had spent inspecting the heavens. "Ah, you don"t _know_ what it is to be free!
By to-morrow morning I shall be half-way to the Mattagami. I can hardly wait to see it, for then I am safe! And then next day--why, next day they won"t know which of a dozen ways I"ve gone!" He was full of the future, man-fashion.
He took her hands, leaned over, and lightly kissed her on the mouth.
Instantly Virginia became wildly and unreasonably angry. She could not have told herself why, but it was the lack of the word she had wanted so much, the pain of feeling that he could go like that, the thwarted bitterness of a longing that had grown stronger than she had even yet realized.
Instinctively she leaped into the canoe, sending it spinning from the bank.
"Ah, you had no _right_ to do that!" she cried. "I gave you no _right_!"
Then, heedless of what he was saying, she began to paddle straight from the sh.o.r.e, weeping bitterly, her face upraised, her hair in her eyes, and the tears coursing unheeded down her cheeks.
_Chapter Fourteen_
Slower and slower her paddle dipped, lower and lower hung her head, faster and faster flowed her tears. The instinctive recoil, the pa.s.sionate resentment had gone. In the bitterness of her spirit she knew not what she thought except that she would give her soul to see him again, to feel the touch of his lips once more. For she could not make herself believe that this would ever come to pa.s.s. He had gone like a phantom, like a dream, and the mists of life had closed about him, showing no sign. He had vanished, and at once she seemed to know that the episode was finished.
The canoe whispered against the soft clay bottom. She had arrived, though how the crossing had been made she could not have told. Slowly and sorrowfully she disembarked. Languidly she drew the light craft beyond the stream"s eager fingers. Then, her forces at an end, she huddled down on the ground and gave herself up to sorrow.
The life of the forest went on as though she were not there. A big owl far off said hurriedly his _whoo-whoo-whoo_, as though he had the message to deliver and wanted to finish the task. A smaller owl near at hand cried _ko-ko-ko-oh_ with the intonation of a tin horn. Across the river a lynx screamed, and was answered at once by the ululations of wolves. On the island the _giddes_ howled defiance. Then from above, clear, spiritual, floated the whistle of sh.o.r.e birds arriving from the south. Close by sounded a rustle of leaves, a sharp squeak; a tragedy had been consummated, and the fierce little mink stared malevolently across the body of his victim at the motionless figure on the beach.
Virginia, drowned in grief, knew of none of these things. She was seeing again the clear brown face of the stranger, his curly brown hair, his steel eyes, and the swing of his graceful figure. Now he fronted the wondering _voyageurs_, one foot raised against the bow of the _brigade_ canoe; now he stood straight and tall against the light of the sitting-room door; now he emptied the vials of his wrath and contempt on Archibald Crane"s reverend head; now he pa.s.sed in the darkness, singing gayly the _chanson de canot_. But more fondly she saw him as he swept his hat to the ground on discovering her by the guns, as he bent his impa.s.sioned eyes on her in the dim lamplight of their first interview, as he tossed his hat aloft in the air when he had understood that she would be in Quebec. She hugged the visions to her, and wept over them softly, for she was now sure she would never see him again.
And she heard his voice, now laughing, now scornful, now mocking, now indignant, now rich and solemn with feeling. He flouted the people, he turned the shafts of his irony on her father, he scathed the minister, he laughed at Louis Placide awakened from his sleep, he sang, he told her of the land of desolation, he pleaded. She could hear him calling her name--although he had never spoken it--in low, tender tones, "Virginia! Virginia!" over and over again softly, as though his soul were crying through his lips.
Then somehow, in a manner not to be comprehended, it was borne in on her consciousness that he was indeed near her, and that he was indeed calling her name. And at once she made him out, standing dripping on the beach. A moment later she was in his arms.
"Ah!" he cried, in gladness; "you are here!"
He crushed her hungrily to him, unmindful of his wet clothes, kissing her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, her chin, even the fragrant corner of her throat exposed by the collar of her gown. She did not struggle.
"Oh!" she murmured, "my dear, my dear! Why did you come back? Why did you come?"
"Why did I come?" he repeated, pa.s.sionately. "Why did I come? Can you ask that? How could I help but come? You must have known I would come.
Surely you must have known! Didn"t you hear me calling you when you paddled away? I came to get the right. I came to get your promise, your kisses, to hear you say the word, to get you! I thought you understood. It was all so clear to me. I thought you knew. That was why I was so glad to go, so eager to get away that I could not even realize I was parting from you--so I could the sooner reach Quebec--reach you! Don"t you see how I felt? All this present was merely something to get over, to pa.s.s by, to put behind us until I got to Quebec in August--and you. I looked forward so eagerly to that, I was so anxious to get away, I was desirous of hastening on to the time when things could be _sure_! Don"t you understand?"
"Yes, I think I do," replied the girl, softly.
"And I thought of course you knew. I should not have kissed you otherwise."
"How could I know?" she sighed. "You said nothing, and, oh! I _wanted_ so to hear!"
And singularly enough he said nothing now, but they stood facing each other hand in hand, while the great vibrant life they were now touching so closely filled their hearts and eyes, and left them faint.
So they stood for hours or for seconds, they could not tell, spirit-hushed, ecstatic. The girl realized that they must part.
"You must go," she whispered brokenly, at last. "I do not want you to, but you must."
She smiled up at him with trembling lips that whispered to her soul that she must be brave.
"Now go," she nerved herself to say, releasing her hands.
"Tell me," he commanded.
"What?" she asked.
"What I most want to hear."
"I can tell you many things," said she, soberly, "but I do not know which of them you want to hear. Ah, Ned, I can tell you that you have come into a girl"s life to make her very happy and very much afraid.
And that is a solemn thing; is it not?"
"Yes," said he.
"And I can tell you that this can never be undone. That is a solemn thing, too, is it not?"
"Yes," said he.
"And that, according as you treat her, this girl will believe or not believe in the goodness of all men or the badness of all men. Ah, Ned, a woman"s heart is fragile, and mine is in your keeping."
Her face was raised bravely and steadily to his. In the starlight it shone white and pathetic. And her eyes were two liquid wells of darkness in the shadow, and her half-parted lips were wistful and childlike.
The man caught both her hands, again looking down on her. Then he answered her, solemnly and humbly.
"Virginia," said he, "I am setting out on a perilous journey. As I deal with you, may G.o.d deal with me."