Not see her again! I do not know what savage, insane thing sprang to life in me. I struck down Cadillac's arm. "You take liberties. You meddle insufferably. She is my wife. I will see her when I please." I like to think that I was not responsible, that it was the cry of a baited animal that could stand no more. Yet all the torture Cadillac had been giving me had been unconscious. He stepped back and looked at me. "My God! You fool!" Oh, I could have knelt to him for shame! My tongue began apology, but my face told a better tale. Cadillac held up his hand. "Stop. Montlivet, you love the Englishwoman? Why, I thought---- I beg your pardon. I was the fool." I went stumblingly toward the door before I could face him. Then I turned and held out my hand. "There is no monopoly in fools. Monsieur, if to love a woman, to love her against her will and your own judgment, to love her hopelessly,--if that is folly, well, I am the worst of fools, the most incurable. I am glad for you to know this. Will you forget that I was a madman, monsieur?" CHAPTER XXVI FROM HOUR TO HOUR It was well that I slept alone that night, for more than once before day dawned I found myself with my feet on the floor and my free arm searching for a knife. I had flouted at imagination, but now every howling dog became an Indian raising the death cry. I asked Cadillac to double the guard before the woman's quarters, but even then I slept with an ear pricked for trouble. And I was abroad early. There are no straight roads in the wilderness; all trails are devious. So with an Indian's mind. I sat in Longuant's skin-roofed lodge and filled hours with talk of Singing Arrow. The girl was to wed Pierre at noon the next day. The marriage was to be solemnized in the chapel the next afternoon, and the whites were to attend. The affair was perhaps worth some talk, if Longuant and I had been squaws yawning over our basket-work. But we were men with knives, and Fear was whispering at our shoulders. The sun climbed, and noises and odors of midday came in the tent door. I plumped out a direct question. "The tree of friendship that grows for the Ottawas and the French,--are its roots deep, Longuant?" The old chief looked at me. "What has my brother seen?" "The Iroquois wolf, my brother. The Iroquois wolf snapping at the roots of this stately tree. What will the Ottawas do, Longuant? Will they drive the wolf away?" The chief still studied me. "When a tree is healthy," he argued, "a wolf cannot harm it; as well dread the butterfly that lights on its leaves or the ant that runs around its trunk. It is only when a tree is unsound at heart that the snapping of a wolf can jar it. And an unsound tree is dangerous. My brother will agree that it is best to cut it down."