Fleda's eyes were on the world beyond the window of the
room.
"Surely we understand," whispered Madame Bulteel.
The woman's courage returned, and she continued: "I could not go to my
father, for he was riding the river scores of miles away. I was terribly
alone. It was then that M'sieu' Marchand, who had bribed the woman to
draw Dennis away, begged me to go away with him. He swore I should marry
him as soon as I could be free of Dennis. I scarcely knew what I said or
thought; but the place I had loved was hateful to me, so I went away with
him."
A sharp, pained exclamation broke from the lips of Madame Bulteel, but
presently she reached out and laid a hand upon the woman's arm. "Of
course you went with him," she said. "You could not stay where you were
and face the return of Dennis. There was no child to keep you, and the
man that tempted you said he adored you?"
The woman looked gratefully at her. "That was what he said," she
answered. "He said he was tired of wandering, and that he wanted a
home-and there was a big house in Montreal."
She stopped suddenly upon an angry, smothered word from Fleda's lips. A
big house in Montreal! Fleda's first impulse was to break in upon the
woman's story and tell her father what had happened just now outside
their own house; but she waited.
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