I heard the words, but I felt incredulous, stupid. I was prepared to meet this decision after argument, not to have it fall on me in this leaden way. I dropped her hand and walked to and fro. It was useless to ask if she had thought out her decision carefully. Her tone disposed of that. I went back and stood before her. "The question is yours to decide. Yet I should be a strange man if I let you go without being sure I understood your motives. If you go because you wish to be free from me,--that is all that need be said. But if I have failed to woo you as a man should---- You sealed my lips. Will you let me open them now?" Perhaps my hand went out to her. At all events she drew away, and I thought her look frightened, as if something urged her to me that she must resist. "No, no, you must not woo me, you must not. I beg you, monsieur." I looked at her panic and shook my head. "Why do you fear to love me, to yield to me? You are my wife." "I told you. I told you the day--the last day that we were together in the woods. It would be a tragedy if we loved, monsieur." "But you are my wife." She looked at me. The light from the window fell full in her great eyes, and they were the eyes of the boy who had looked up at me in that very room; the boy who had captured me, against my reason, by his spirit and will, I felt the same challenge now. "I am your wife, yes," she was saying slowly. "That is, the priest said some words over us that we both denied in our hearts. I cannot look at marriage in that way, monsieur. No priest, no ritual can make a marriage if the right thing is not there. The fact that you gave me your name to shield me does not give me a claim on you in my mind. Wait. Let me say more. You have great plans, great opportunity. You will make a great leader, monsieur." Her words sounded mockery. "Thank you, madame." I knew my tone was bitter. She looked at me reproachfully. "Monsieur, you are unkind. I meant what I said. I heard you in the council yesterday. I asked to go in that I might hear you. I know something of what you have done this summer. I know how you fended away massacre the other night. This is a crucial time, and you are the only man who can handle the situation; the only man who has influence to lead the united tribes. Your opportunity is wonderful. You are making history. You may be changing the map of nations, you--alone here--working with a few Indians. Believe me, I see it all. It is wonderful, monsieur." "But what has this to do with you and me?"