"To keep a pledge is greater."

"Yet if evil come?"

"There is the mine."

"None travels hither; who should find it?"

He said to me, my wife: 'Antoine, will you stay and watch the mine until
I come with the birds northward, again?' and I said: 'I will stay, and
Angelique will stay; I will watch the mine.'"

"This is for his riches, but for our peril, Antoine."

"Who can say whither a woman's fancy goes? It is full of guessing. It
is clouds and darkness to-day, and sunshine--so much--to-morrow. I
cannot answer."

"I have a fear; if my husband loved me--"

"There is the mine," he interrupted firmly.

"When my heart aches so--"

"Angelique, there is the mine."

"Ah, my Antoine!"

And so these two stayed on the island of St. Jean, in Lake Superior,
through the purple haze of autumn, into the white brilliancy of winter,