Mère Lunde had to give the young wife a warm welcome. The tears of joy filled her faded eyes.
Renée lay on the settle, sobbing. Wawataysee bent over and would have taken her hand.
"Go away! go away!" she cried imperiously. "I do not want you. You have _him_ to be glad with and I have no one, no one!"
"Renée, my little dear, François is so glad."
"Go away!" She turned her face to the wall and slapped impatiently with her hand. "I will not listen. The Indians have Uncle Gaspard, I know."
Mère Lunde beckoned them. "She is very wilful at times, and now her heart is sore. But the good saints have led you both back. He has been north many a time and come home unharmed."
"They will kill him this time!" the child almost shrieked. "There was that fierce Black Feather! Oh, he will never come back, never!"
The old woman waved them to the doorway and they turned and passed out. All the garden was abloom and sweet with the fragrance of growing fruit, tangled vines and flowers. The pale heavens had lost the light of day, and the blue of the night was hidden by a soft gray vagueness. Birds were singing good-night songs to each other and to sleepy nestlings. Marchand, with his arm around his wife, drew her into a secluded spot.
"Black Feather was a Huron," he said, "mean, tricky, avaricious. Surely you were not in his hands?" and his grasp tightened.
"Only a little while. Oh, I would never have been taken alive to the straits! And this young Valbonais was their captive. Oh, where has he disappeared to? He had an uncle in St. Louis, whither he was coming when they captured him."
"Tell me the story. I have had hundreds of fears for you, my darling, yet I kept trusting the All Father."
"Oh, not to-night!" she pleaded. "Is it not enough that I am restored, and that no evil has happened to me? Let us not mar the joy of this meeting."
So they sat until the white veil in the sky cleared away and all was a heavenly blue, with stars shining so bright they took on beautiful tints and twinkled as in a fairy dance. To the reunited hearts there had never been such a night of joy and splendor.
Renée sobbed herself to sleep, worn out with the pangs of disappointment. Mère Lunde would not disturb her. She set out a little supper for the other two, and they talked in low tones. Mère Lunde told of her wanderings, and that she had almost died of hunger and thirst.