"Hardly so soon as that, I fear, Madame," I answered. "This is a stern chase, and it is like to be a long one; you must make up your mind to that, if you would not have a fresh disappointment every hour." "Oh," she broke out, "if it were your child you were trying to find and save, you would not be so cool about it." "Believe me, Madame," said I, in a low voice, "I am not perhaps as cool as I appear." "Oh, what a weak and silly creature I must seem to you!" she cried. "But I will not be weak and silly when it comes to trial, Monsieur, I promise you. I _will_ prove worthy of your confidence. But make allowance for me now, and do not judge me harshly. Every moment I seem to hear him crying for me, Monsieur." And her head drooped forward in unspeakable grief. I could think of nothing, absolutely nothing, to say. I could only mutter hoarsely, "I do not think you either weak or silly, Madame." This answer, feeble as it appeared to myself, seemed in a sense to relieve her. She put down her paddle, leaned forward upon the front bar, with her face in her hands, and sobbed gently for a few minutes. Then, while I gazed upon her in rapt commiseration, she all at once resumed the paddle briskly. For my own part, being just lately returned from a long expedition, my muscles were like steel; I felt that I should never weary. Steadily onward we pressed, past the mouths of several small streams whose names I did not know, past headland after headland of red clay or pallid plaster rock. As the tide fell, we were driven far out into the bay, till sometimes there was a mile of oozy red flats parting us from the edge of the green. But as the tide rose again, we accompanied its seething vanguard, till at last we were again close in shore. A breeze soon after mid-day springing up behind us, we made excellent progress. But soon after sunset a mist arose, which made our journey too perilous to be continued. I turned into a narrow cove between high banks, where the brawling of a shallow brook promised us fresh water. And there, in a thicket of young fir trees growing at the foot of a steep bank, I set up the canoe on edge, laid some poles and branches against it, and had a secluded shelter for my lady. She looked at it with a gratified admiration and could never be done with thanking me. Being now near the Shubenacadie mouth, I durst not light a fire, but we uncomplainingly ate our black bread; and then I said: "We will start at first gray, comrade. You will need all the sleep you can win. Good night, and kindly dreams."