The priest knew then that Onawa had saved him from the knife which would have avenged the half-breed boy, who had flung himself with such desperate courage upon death. Casting away the arms which encompassed him, he passed swiftly into the shadow of the grove, while Onawa advanced boldly and met the woman she had wronged so grievously, and dared to face her without shame. For a space they stood, gazing at one another by the firelight, until the younger cast down her eyes and began to shiver with the coldness of fear. "Approach me, sister," said the stern woman. "There is a question I would have you answer. Refuse you dare not, for we are flesh and blood; we are daughters of Shuswap the truthful, and the same mother gave us birth. I seek not to know what brings you here this night, but tell me now have you seen that proud priest who has slain my son?" "I have not seen him," cried Onawa fiercely; but she was cold to the heart beneath the gaze of those colder eyes. "'Tis well. A daughter of the Cayugas lies not, save to an enemy. But why do you slink thus away? You do not fear me, sister?" Onawa stared aside speechless. "After I became wife to the great white man you came often to our home among the lost waters," Mary Iden went on. "My Richard loved you. Remember, sister, how often you played with the child, how many times you carried him in your arms, and told him the old stories of our race. Hast forgotten how he would laugh at your coming, how he would run down to meet you with a gift, and draw up your canoe and bring you to our shelter by the hand? Remember when he had committed a fault how you pleaded for him, calling him _Dear child_ and _Sunlight of the camp_. Sister, I know that you grieve for the boy." Chilled at her words Onawa passed to the fire, turning from those pursuing eyes. "I shall not forget how Richard loved you. When you need me, sister, come, and I will give you your former place beside the fire. So shall you rest and forget the strangers in this land. By the love that you bore for my boy, sister, I will not forget you." Onawa looked up and saw only the figure of La Salle emerging from the grove. Her sister had drawn back into the night. The gale circled the embers in whitening eddies. Onawa wildly snatched a stick and raked the glowing fragments into a pyramid, upon which she flung some roots of willow. A yellow fog ascended, torn hither and thither by the spirits of the wind. She crept to La Salle's feet and fawned upon them. He spurned her and still she struggled to approach, to cling as the weed upon a rock. She had made the sacrifice of her life that she might serve him. She had discharged the arrow to slay the Englishman solely that she might win his love. She had relied upon her fierce beauty, her youth, and her strength to conquer the handsome Frenchman. She had staked her all upon her heart's desires. And now he flung her from him, and strode away from the fireside and the grove.