He left her, knowing that she had other things to say to Jean
which she did not wish him to hear. As he turned toward the coulee
he noticed that she still held the opened letter in her hand.

There was not much for him to do when he reached his canoe. He
threw out his sleeping bag and tent, and arranged Josephine's robe
and pillows so that she would sit facing him. The knowledge that
she was to be with him, that they were joined in a pact which
would make her his constant companion, filled him with joyous
visions and anticipations. He did not stop to ask himself how long
this mysterious association might last, how soon it might come to
the tragic end to which she had foredoomed it. With the spirit of
the adventurer who had more than once faced death with a smile, he
did not believe in burning bridges ahead of him. He loved
Josephine. To him this love had come as it had come to Tristan and
Isolde, to Paola and Francesca--sudden and irresistible, but,
unlike theirs, as pure as the air of the world which he breathed.
That he knew nothing of her, that she had not even revealed her
full name to him, did not affect the depth or sincerity of his
emotion. Nor had her frank avowal that he could expect no reward
destroyed his hope. The one big thought that ran through his brain
now, as he arranged the canoe, was that there was room for hope,
and that she had been free to accept the words he had spoken to
her without dishonour to herself. If she belonged to some other
man she would not have asked him to play the part of a husband.
Her freedom and his right to fight for her was the one consuming
fact of significance to him just now. Beside that all others were
trivial and unimportant, and every drop of blood in his veins was
stirred by a strange exultation.