While indeed it only confirmed her woman’s intuition, Elise was unconsciously happier because of Rutledge’s blunt statement of his love, for it made certain a fact that was not displeasing to her. Yet she would hold him at arm’s length, for she could with sincerity bid him neither hope nor despair. The glamour of her day-dreams made the reading of her heart’s message uncertain. Rutledge had not the glittering accessories that attended the wooer of her visions; and yet as he talked to her she was mentally placing him in every picture her mind drew of the future, and was impressed that whether in the soft scenes where knightly gallantry and grace wait upon fair women, or in the stern dramas where bitter strength of mind and heart and body is poured out in libation to the god of grinding conflict, he, in every scene, looked all that became a man. Rutledge’s flow of narrative and Elise’s absent-minded reverie were broken in upon by the hail of Jacques, who was approaching them from almost directly up-stream. His canoe was doing a grapevine dance as he pushed it yet farther across the river and dropped rapidly down to a landing on the far side of the island. "Sacre! Wrong side!" he exclaimed when he came across and saw where Rutledge had pulled his canoe out of the water. "Here I lose two canoe sometime. How you mek him land?" Rutledge did not answer the question but set about getting his canoe across the island to the point designated by Jacques as the place for leaving it. He had no desire to stay longer since all hope of further _tête-à-tête_ with Elise was gone; and in a few minutes they were ready to embark. "No hard pull, but kvick paddle lak feesh-tail," said Jacques in explaining the course by which they were to return, the which was plainly beset with numberless rocks and shoals. "Sweem out seex times befor I lairn road," he added as a comforting proof of the thoroughness of his knowledge. The return was a simple matter of dropping off from the far side of the island, floating down a few rods, and then picking along through the rocks across the river as the canoe gathered speed down-stream. "Miss Phillips," Rutledge said when they were ready, "perhaps you had better take ship with Jacques. He knows the road." Their rescuer looked pleased at the honour, and turned to pull his canoe within easier reach. "No, thank you," she said to Rutledge. "I prefer to go with you." Rutledge caught his breath at the loyalty and the caress in her voice, and ungratefully wished Jacques at the bottom of the river. He handed her into his canoe with a tenderness that was eloquent; and Jacques, seeing through the game which robbed him of the graceful young woman for a passenger, put off just ahead of them, saying: "I go fairst. Follow me shairp."