I tell you she is a
woman--and if you are not a fool you will take her away with Marion."
With a powerful stroke of his paddle Neil brought the canoe in to the
shore.
"There!" he whispered. "You have only to cross this point to reach your
boat." He stretched out his long arm and in the silence the two shook
hands. "If you should happen to think of a way--that we might get
Winnsome--" he added, coloring.
The sudden grip of his companion's fingers made him flinch.
"We must!" said Nathaniel.
He climbed ashore and watched Neil until he had disappeared in the wild
rice. Then he turned into the woods. He looked at his watch and saw that
it was only two o'clock. He was conscious of no fatigue; he was not
conscious of hunger. To him the whole world had suddenly opened with
glorious promise and in the still depths of the forest he felt like
singing out his rejoicing. He had never stopped to ask himself what
might be the end of this passion that had overwhelmed him; he lived only
in the present, in the knowledge that Marion was not a wife, and that it
was he whom fate had chosen for her deliverance. He reasoned nothing
beyond the sweet eyes that had called upon him, that had burned their
gratitude, their hope and their despair upon his soul; nothing beyond
the thought that she would soon be free from the mysterious influence of
the Mormon king and that for days and nights after that she would be on
the same ship with him. He had emptied the pockets of the coat he had
given Neil and now he brought forth the old letter which Obadiah had
rescued from the sands.
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