FullReads

Stroke Laforce had given himself up, had himself ridden to Winnipeg, a thousand miles, and told his story. Then the sergeant’s stripes had been stripped from his arm, he had been tried, and on his own statement had got twelve years’ imprisonment. Ten years had passed since then–since Marcey was put away in his grave, since Pierre left Fort Ste. Anne, and he had not seen it or Lucille in all that time. But he knew that Gyng was dead, and that his widow and her child had gone south or east somewhere; of Laforce after his sentence he had never heard.

He stood looking at the house from the shade of the solitary pine-tree near it, recalling every incident of that fatal night. He had the gift of looking at a thing in its true proportions, perhaps because he had little emotion and a strong brain, or perhaps because early in life his emotions were rationalised. Presently he heard the voice again:

“He waits at the threshold stone–
(Why should the key-hole rust?)
The eagle broods at his side,
(Why should the blind be drawn?)
Long has he watched, and far has he called
The lonely sentinel of the North:
“Who goes there?” to the wandering soul:
Heavy of heart is the Red Patrol
(Why should the key-hole rust?)
The Scarlet Hunter is sick for home,
(Why should the blind be drawn?)”

Now he recognised the voice. Its golden timbre brought back a young girl’s golden face and golden hair. It was summer, and the window with the broken shutter was open. He was about to go to it, when a door of the house opened, and a girl appeared. She was tall, with rich, yellow hair falling loosely about her head; she had a strong, finely cut chin and a broad brow, under which a pair of deep blue eyes shone-violet blue, rare and fine. She stood looking down at the Fort for a few moments, unaware of Pierre’s presence. But presently she saw him leaning against the tree, and she started as from a spirit.

“Monsieur!” she said–“Pierre!” and stepped forward again from the doorway.

He came to her, and “Ah, p’tite Lucille,” he said, “you remember me, eh?–and yet so many years ago!”

“But you remember me,” she answered, “and I have changed so much!”

“It is the man who should remember, the woman may forget if she will.”

Pierre did not mean to pay a compliment; he was merely thinking.

She made a little gesture of deprecation. “I was a child,” she said.

Pierre lifted a shoulder slightly. “What matter? It is sex that I mean. What difference to me–five, or forty, or ninety? It is all sex. It is only lovers, the hunters of fire-flies, that think of age–mais oui!”

She had a way of looking at you before she spoke, as though she were trying to find what she actually thought. She was one after Pierre’s own heart, and he knew it; but just here he wondered where all that ancient coquetry was gone, for there were no traces of it left; she was steady of eye, reposeful, rich in form and face, and yet not occupied with herself. He had only seen her for a minute or so, yet he was sure that what she was just now she was always, or nearly so, for the habits of a life leave their mark, and show through every phase of emotion and incident whether it be light or grave.

“I think I understand you,” she said. “I think I always did a little, from the time you stayed with Grah the idiot at Fort o’ God, and fought the Indians when the others left. Only–men said bad things of you, and my father did not like you, and you spoke so little to me ever. Yet I mind how you used to sit and watch me, and I also mind when you rode the man down who stole my pony, and brought them both back.”