We would have died for the little Meleese, and the other
Meleese, her mother. And also, M'seur, we would have killed our own
brothers had they as much as spoken a word against them or cast at the
mother even as much as a look which was not the purest. That is how we
loved her sixteen years ago this winter, M'seur, and that is how we love
her memory still."
"She is dead," uttered Howland, forgetting in these tense moments the
significance Jean's story might hold for him.
"Yes; she is dead. M'seur, shall I tell you how she died?"
Croisset sprang to his feet, his eyes flashing, his lithe body
twitching like a wolf's as he stood for an instant half leaning over
the engineer.
"Shall I tell you how she died, M'seur?" he repeated, falling back on
his stool, his long arms stretched over the table. "It happened like
this, sixteen years ago, when the little Meleese was four years old and
the oldest of the three sons was fourteen. That winter a man and his boy
came up from Churchill. He had letters from the Factor at the Bay, and
our Factor and his wife opened their doors to him and to his son, and
gave them all that it was in their power to give.
"_Mon Dieu_, this man was from that glorious civilization of yours,
M'seur--from that land to the south where they say that Christ's temples
stand on every four corners, but he could not understand the strange God
and the strange laws of our people! For months he had been away from the
companionship of women, and in this great wilderness the Factor's wife
came into his life as the flower blossoms in the desert.
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