“Beyond all else in the world,” he replied.

She still looked at him, without speaking, as though through his eyes she was searching to the bottom of his soul.

“And you know,” she whispered, after a moment.

He drew her so close she could not move, and crushed his face down against her own.

“Jeanne—­Jeanne—­everything is as it should be,” he said.  “I am glad that you were found out in the snows.  I am glad that the woman in the picture was your mother.  I would have nothing different than it is, for if things were different you would not be the Jeanne that I know, and I would not love you so.  You have suffered, sweetheart.  And I, too, have had my share of sorrow.  God has brought us together, and all is right in the end.  Jeanne—­my sweet Jeanne—­”

Gregson had left the outer door slightly ajar.  A gust of wind opened it wider.  Through it there came now a sound that interrupted the words on Philip’s lips, and sent a sudden quiver through Jeanne.  In an instant both recognized the sound.  It was the firing of rifles, the shots coming to them faintly from far beyond the mountain at the end of the lake.  Moved by the same impulse, they ran to the door, hand in hand.

“It is Sachigo!” panted Jeanne.  She could hardly speak.  She seemed to struggle to get breath, “I had forgotten.  They are fighting—­”

MacDougall strode up from his post beside the door, where he had been waiting for the appearance of Jeanne.

“Firing—­off there,” he said.  “What does it mean?”

“We must wait and see,” replied Philip.  “Send two of your men to investigate, Mac.  I will rejoin you after I have taken Miss d’Arcambal over to Cassidy’s wife.”

He moved away quickly with Jeanne.  On a sudden rise of the wind from the south the firing came to them more distinctly.  Then it died away, and ended in three or four intermittent shots.  For the space of a dozen seconds a strange stillness followed, and then over the mountain top, where there was still a faint glow in the sky, there came the low, quavering, triumphal cry of the Crees:  a cry born of the forest itself, mournful even in its joy, only half human—­almost like a far-away burst of tongue from a wolf pack on the hunt trail.  And after that there was an unbroken silence.

“It is over,” breathed Philip.

He felt Jeanne’s fingers tighten about his own.

“No one will ever know,” he continued.  “Even MacDougall will not guess what has happened out there—­to-night.”

He stopped a dozen paces from Cassidy’s cabin.  The windows were aglow, and they could hear the laughter and play of Cassidy’s two children within.  Gently he drew Jeanne to him.

“You will stay here to-night, dear,” he said.  “To-morrow we will go to Fort o’ God.”

“You must take me home to-night,” whispered Jeanne, looking up into his face.  “I must go, Philip.  Send some one with me, and you can come—­in the morning—­with Pierre—­”