"
As they walked away, Jan's face still as pallid as the gray snow under
their feet, Gravois added: "You're a fool, Jan Thoreau. There's a
crowd at your cabin, and you'll have dinner with me."
"La charogne!" muttered Jan. "Les betes de charogne!"
Jean gripped him by the arm.
"I tell you that it means nothing--nothing!" he said, repeating his
words of the previous day in the cabin. "You are a man. You must fight
it down, and forget. No one knows but you and me."
"You will never tell what you read in the papers?" cried Jan quickly.
"You swear it?"
"By the blessed Virgin, I swear it!"
"Then," said Jan softly, "Melisse will never know!"
"Never," said Jean. His dark face flashed joyously as Iowaka's sweet
voice came to them, singing a Cree lullaby in the little home. "Some
day Melisse will be singing that same way over there; and it will be
for you, Jan Thoreau, as my Iowaka is now singing for me!"
An hour later Jan went slowly across the open to Cummins' cabin. As he
paused for an instant at the door he heard a laugh that was strange to
him, and when he opened it to enter he stood perplexed and undecided.
Melisse had risen from the table at the sound of his approach, and his
eyes quickly passed from her flushed face to the young man who was
sitting opposite her.
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