“I know of no warrant that applies to you,” I murmured.  “Cadillac’s letter mentioned an Englishman.  I know of none such.  I travel with a woman, my wife, and commandants have naught to do with us.  Was that what was troubling you, madame?”

She bowed, and her breath came unevenly.  Her right hand lay outside the blanket, and I bent and touched it with my lips.

“How you hate Lord Starling!  How you hate him!” I whispered.  “I wonder, can you love as singly?  Can you love with as little care for self and comfort and for all the fat conveniences of life?  Madame, you are a willful child to lie here and tilt at shadows when you should be garnering strength by sleep.  I promised you my sword and my name, and I agreed that they should both be yours till of your own wish you should send me away.  Had you forgotten that I promised?  I had not.”

I had slipped to my knees again and rested with my forehead on her hand.  I could feel her other hand stray toward me.

“No,” she whispered.  “No, I had not forgotten, but the dark and a sudden loneliness made me a coward.  Thank you.  It is over now and I will sleep.  Monsieur, my partner, I will say good-night, and this time I will not call you.”

But I rested a moment longer on my knees with my head against her palm.  Then I rose.

“Partners, perhaps,” I said softly.  “Yet more than that.  Madame, are we not like pilgrims groping our way together on a dark road?  We cannot see far ahead, but there is a light in the distance.  I think that we shall reach it.  Good-night.  We shall both sleep now, madame.”

But she slept and I did not.  It was nearly day when I closed my eyes again, yet I did not find the moments long.

The next morning was quiet and the sky clear.  I had read my maps rightly, and once embarked, an hour of paddling brought us to Sturgeon Cove.  It opened before us suddenly, a wedge of flecked turquoise laid across the shaded greens of the peninsula.  As we entered it a flock of white gulls rose from the rocky shore and flew before us.  The air, rain washed, was so limpid that it seemed a marvel that it could sustain the heavy-pinioned birds, but they moved in sure curves and seemed to bear us with them.  I pointed the woman’s glance toward them.

“An omen.  We shall follow them and rest here.  It is our home.”

We nosed our way, with leisurely paddles, close to the northern shore.  The land sloped gently from the beach, and the quivering water, a faded green from the tree shadows, crawled over gravel that was patterned with the white of quartz and with the pomegranate of carnelian.  It was a jeweled pavement, and it led to forest aisles where cathedral lights splashed through the trees.  But I would not stop.  The gulls were still leading.

The bay narrowed, and the shores pressed close to us, with compact ranks of cedars held spearwise.  Yet we pushed on, and the water path spread out once more, a final widening.  We saw before us the rounded end of the bay, and the neck of land that formed the Sturgeon portage.  The woman looked at me.