One evening found three friends, Julie, Jean Marcel and Fleur, again walking on the shore of the Great Whale in the mellow sunset. Romping with puppy awkwardness, Fleur's progeny roved near them. The hush of an August night was upon the land. Below, the young ebb ran silently without ripple. Not a leaf stirred in the scrub edging the trail. The dead sun, master artist, had limned the heavens with all the varied magic of his palette, and the gray bay, often sullenly restless under low-banked clouds, or blanketed with mist, now reached out, a shimmering floor, to the rim of the world.
In silence the two, mute with the peace of the moment, watched the heightening splendor of the western skies. Disdaining the alluring scents of the neighboring scrub, which her puppies were exploring, Fleur kept to Marcel's side where her nose might find his hand, for she had not forgotten the days of their recent separation.
"What you did for me I can never repay." Marcel broke the silence, his eyes on the White Bear Hills, sapphire blue on southern horizon.
"Monsieur Jean Marcel, what I have done, I would do for any friend. I am weary of hearing you speak of it. Have you no eyes for the sunset the good God has given us? Let us speak of that."
"_Bien!_ We shall speak no more of it then, Ma'm'selle Breton. But this you shall hear. I am sorry that I acted like a boy about M'sieu Wallace. You will forgive me?"
"There is nothing to forgive," she answered. "I know you were hurt. It was natural for you to feel the way you did."
"But I showed little of the man, Julie. I was hurt here," and he placed his hand on his heart, "and I was a child."
She smiled wistfully, slowly shaking her head. "I fear you were very like a man, Jean. But you are going away and I may not be here in the spring--may not see you for a long time--so I want to tell you now how proud I have been of you this summer."
"Yes, you have made a great name on the East Coast this summer, Jean Marcel. When you were ill the Crees talked of little else--of your travelling where no Indian had dared to go until you found the caribou; your winning, over those terrible Lelacs and proving your innocence; your fighting them with bare hands, because you knew no fear."