The room was heavy-curtained, deep embrasured, for the house, beneath
its clap-boards, was of logs. Although out of doors the clear spring
sunshine still flooded the valley of the Moose; within, the shadows
had begun with velvet fingers to extinguish the brighter lights.
Virginia threw herself back on a chair in the corner.

"Virginia," said Galen Albret, suddenly.

"Yes, father."

"You are no longer a child, but a woman. Would you like to go to
Quebec?"

She did not answer him at once, but pondered beneath close-knit brows.

"Do you wish me to go, father?" she asked at length.

"You are eighteen. It is time you saw the world, time you learned the
ways of other people. But the journey is hard. I may not see you again
for some years. You go among strangers."

He fell silent again. Motionless he had been, except for the mumbling
of his lips beneath his beard.

"It shall be just as you wish," he added a moment later.

At once a conflict arose in the girl's mind between her restless
dreams and her affections. But beneath all the glitter of the question
there was really nothing to take her out. Here was her father, here
were the things she loved; yonder was novelty--and loneliness.