The flush deepened in her cheeks as she began to gather up the dishes.
"We are of no relation," continued Jan, something impelling him to speak the words with cool precision. "Only we have lived under the same roof since she was a baby, and so we have come to be like brother and sister."
"Miss Melisse has been telling me about your wonderful run this morning," exclaimed the young Englishman, his face reddening slightly as he detected the girl"s embarra.s.sment. "I wish I had seen it!"
"There will be plenty of it very soon," replied Jan, caught by the frankness of the other"s manner. "Our runners will be going out among the trappers within a fortnight."
"And will they take me?"
"You may go with me, if you can run. I leave the day after to-morrow."
"Thanks," said Dixon, moving toward the door.
Melisse did not lift her head as he went out. Faintly she said:
"I"ve kept your dinner for you, Jan. Why didn"t you come sooner?"
"I had dinner with Gravois," he replied. "Jean said that you would hardly be prepared for five, Melisse, so I accepted his invitation."
He took down from the wall a fur sledge-coat, in which Melisse had mended a rent a day or two before, and, throwing it over his arm, turned to leave.
"Jan!"
He faced her slowly, knowing that in spite of himself there was a strangeness in his manner which she would not understand.
"Why are you going away the day after to-morrow--two weeks before the others? You didn"t tell me."
"I"m going a hundred miles into the South," he answered.
"Over the Nelson House trail?"
"Yes."
"Oh!" Her lips curled slightly as she looked at him. Then she laughed, and a bright spot leaped into either cheek. "I understand, brother,"
she said softly. "Pardon me for questioning you so. I had forgotten that the MacVeigh girl lives on the Nelson trail. Iowaka says that she is as sweet as a wild flower. I wish you would have her come up and visit us some time, Jan."
Jan"s face went red, then white, but Melisse saw only the first effect of her random shot, and was briskly gathering up the dishes.
"I turn off into the Cree Lake country before I reach MacVeighs"." he was on the point of saying; but the words hung upon his lips, and he remained silent.
A few minutes later he was talking with Jean de Gravois. The little Frenchman"s face was ominously dark, and he puffed furiously upon his pipe when Jan told him why he was leaving at once for the South.
"Running away!" he repeated for the tenth time in French, his thin lips curling in a sneer. "I am sorry that I gave you my oath, Jan Th.o.r.eau, else I would go myself and tell Melisse what I read in the papers.
Pish! Why can"t you forget?"
"I may--some day," said Jan. "That is why I am going into the South two weeks early, and I shall be gone until after the big roast. If I remain here another week, I shall tell Melisse, and then--"
He shrugged his shoulders despairingly.
"And then--what?"
"I should go away for ever."
Jean snapped his fingers with a low laugh.
"Then remain another week, Jan Th.o.r.eau, and if it turns out as you say, I swear I will abandon my two Iowakas and little Jean to the wolves!"
"I am going the day after to-morrow."
The next morning Iowaka complained to Melisse that Gravois was as surly as a bear.
"A wonderful change has come over him," she said. "He does nothing but shrug his shoulders and say "Le diable!" and "The fool!" Last night I could hardly sleep because of his growling. I wonder what bad spirit has come into my Jean?"
Melisse was wondering the same of Jan. She saw little of him during the day. At noon, Dixon told her that he had made up his mind not to accompany Th.o.r.eau on the trip south.
The following morning, before she was up, Jan had gone. She was deeply hurt. Never before had he left on one of his long trips without spending his last moments with her. She had purposely told her father to entertain the agent and his son at the store that evening, so that Jan might have an opportunity of bidding her good-by alone.
Outside of her thoughts of Jan, the days and evenings that followed were pleasant ones for her. The new agent was as jolly as he was fat, and took an immense liking to Melisse. Young Dixon was good-looking and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with life, and spent a great deal of his time in her company.
For hours at a time she listened to his stories of the wonderful world across the sea. As MacDonald had described that life to Jan at Fort Churchill, so he told of it to Melisse, filling her with visions of great cities, painting picture after picture, until her imagination was riot with the beauty and the marvel of it all, and she listened, with flaming cheeks and glowing eyes.
One day, a week after Jan had gone, he told her about the women in the world which had come to be a fairy-land to Melisse.
"They are all beautiful over there?" she asked wonderingly, when he had finished.
"Many of them are beautiful, but none so beautiful as you, Melisse," he replied, leaning near to her, his eyes shining. "Do you know that you are beautiful?"
His words frightened her so much that she bowed her head to hide the signs of it in her face. Jan had often spoken those same words--a thousand times he had told her that she was beautiful--but there bad never been this fluttering of her heart before.
There were few things which Iowaka and she did not hold in secret between them, and a day or two later Melisse told her friend what Dixon had said. For the first time Iowaka abused the confidence placed in her, and told Jean.
"Le diable!" gritted Jean, his face blackening.
He said no more until night, when the children were asleep. Then he drew Iowaka close beside him on a bench near the stove, and asked carelessly:
"Mon ange, if one makes an oath to the blessed Virgin, and breaks it, what happens?"
He evaded the startled look in his wife"s big black eyes.
"It means that one will be for ever d.a.m.ned unless he confesses to a priest soon after, doesn"t it ma cherie? And if there is no priest nearer than four hundred miles, it is a dangerous thing to do, is it not? But--" He did not wait for an answer. "If one might have the oath broken, and not do it himself, what then?"
"I don"t know," said Iowaka simply, staring at him in amazed questioning.
"Nor do I," said Jean, lighting his pipe. "But there is enough of the devil in Jean de Gravois to make him break a thousand oaths if it was for you, my Iowaka!"
Her eyes glowed upon him softly.
"A maiden"s soul leaves her body when she becomes the wife of the man she loves," she whispered tenderly in Cree, resting her dark head on Jean"s shoulder. "That is what my people believe, Jean; and if I have given my soul to you, why should I not break oath for you?"
"For me alone, Iowaka?"