ring, and saw that the strong, nervous fingers were gripped till they were bloodless.  What was she thinking?  I tried to meet her look, but it was rapt and awed.  A wave of heat ran through me; the wild music beat into my blood.  This savage ritual that I had looked at with alien eyes suddenly took to itself the dignity of the terrible wilderness that bound us.  The pageantry of its barbarism seized upon me; it was a fitting setting for one kind of marriage,—­not a marriage of flowers and dowry, but the union of two great, stormy hearts who, through clash and turmoil, had found peace at last.  But ours was a mock marriage, and we had not found peace.  My breath choked me.  I leaped to my feet, and begged Onanguisse to end the ceremony, and let me do my share.  I knew what was my part as bridegroom, and Pierre and Labarthe were waiting with their arms laden.  I distributed hatchets, Brazil tobacco, and beads from Venice.  Then I turned to Onanguisse.

“We go to the land of the Malhominis, to the wild rice people.  They live toward the south-west?”

He nodded.  “Across La Baye des Puants as the wild goose flies.  Then down till you find the mouth of the wild rice river.  But why go till another sunrise?”

I hesitated.  But I thought of the shadowing Huron, and decided that I could elude him best at night.  “We are in haste,” I told Onanguisse, and I pointed the men toward their work.

But before I myself had time to step toward the canoes, I felt the woman’s touch upon my arm.  Though, in truth, it was odd that I felt it, for the movement was light as the brushing of a grass stalk.

“Monsieur, do we go now?” she asked.  “You have had no opportunity for council with these Indians, yet I see that they are powerful.”

She was watching my interests.  I laid my fingers on hers, and looked full at her as I had not done since we had been man and wife.  Her eyes were mournful as they often were, but they were starry with a thought I could not read.  The awe and the wonder were still there, and her fingers were unsteady under mine.  I dropped to my knees.

“I have done more than you saw,” I said, with my eyes on hers.  “I have talked with Onanguisse, and have smoked a full pipe with the old men in council.  Thank you for your interest.  Thank you, Madame de Montlivet.”

But she would not look at me bent before her.  “That I wish you to do your best, unhampered by me, does not mean that I wish you success,” she said, with her head high, and she went to Onanguisse, and curtsied her adieus.  Her last words were with Father Nouvel, and she hid her eyes for a moment, while he blessed her and said good-by.

Our canoes pointed to the sunset as we rounded the headland and slid outward.  On the shore, the Indian women chanted a hymn to Messou,—­to Messou, the Maker of Life, and the God of Marriage, to whom, on our behalf, many pipes had been smoked that day.