He took her arm. As if deprived of resistance she suffered herself to be led forward and then down a few steps. He opened a door. "See," he said, "I have arranged a pretty bower for you, and a servant to wait upon you. And now, Mam'selle Angelot, further refusal is useless. To-morrow or next day at the latest the priest will make us man and wife." "I will never be your wife alive," she said. Every pulse within her shrank from the desecration. "Oh, yes, you will," and he smiled with a blandness that was maddening. "When we are once married I shall be very sweet and gentle. I shall wait with such patience that you will learn to pity me at first. My devotion will be so great that even a heart of marble could not resist. Mam'selle, the sun and the rain will wear away the stoutest rocks in time, and in the split crevices there grows some tiny flower. That is the way it is with the most resolute woman's heart. And you are not much more than a child. Then--you have no lover." Jeanne stood spellbound. Was it possible that she should ever come to love this man? Yet in her childhood she had been very fond of him. She was a great puzzle to herself at this moment. All the old charms and fascinations that had been part of the lore of her childhood, weird stories that Touchas had told, but which were forbidden by the Church, rushed over her. She was full of terror at herself as well as of Louis Marsac. He read the changes in her countenance, but he did not understand her shrinking from an abhorred suitor, nor the many fine and delicate lines of restraint that had come to hedge her about, to impress a peculiar responsibility of her own soul that would be degraded by the bondage. She had seen some of it in other girls mated to coarse natures. "My beautiful bird shall have everything. We will go up to the head of the great lake where my father has a lodge that is second only to that of the White Chief. I am his only son. He wishes for my marriage. Jeanne, he will give thee such a welcome as no woman ever had. The costliest furs shall be thine, jewels from abroad, servants to come at the bidding of thy finger--" "I do not want them!" she interrupted, vehemently. "I have told you I do not want to be the wife of any man. Give me the freedom you have stolen from me. Send me back to Detroit. Oh, there must be women ready to marry you. Let me go." Her voice had a piercing sweetness. Even anger could not have made it harsh. She dropped on her knees; she raised her beautiful eyes in passionate entreaty. There was much of the savage Indian in him. He would enjoy her subjugation. It would begin gently, then he would tighten the cord until she had paid back to the uttermost, even to the blow she had given him. But he was too astute to begin here.