who know the world it is not singular that, of the two, Armour was
thought to have made the mistake and had the misfortune, or that people
wasted their pity and their scorn upon him alone. Apparently they did
not see that the woman was to be pitied. He had married her; and she was
only an Indian girl from Fort Charles of the Hudson's Bay Company, with a
little honest white blood in her veins. Nobody, not even her own people,
felt that she had anything at stake, or was in danger of unhappiness, or
was other than a person who had ludicrously come to bear the name of Mrs.
Francis Armour. If any one had said in justification that she loved the
man, the answer would have been that plenty of Indian women had loved
white men, but had not married them, and yet the population of half-
breeds went on increasing.

Frank Armour had been a popular man in London. His club might be found
in the vicinity of Pall Mall, his father's name was high and honoured in
the Army List, one of his brothers had served with Wolseley in Africa,
and Frank himself, having no profession, but with a taste for business
and investment, had gone to Canada with some such intention as Lord
Selkirk's in the early part of the century. He owned large shares in the
Hudson's Bay Company, and when he travelled through the North-West
country, prospecting, he was received most hospitably. Of an inquiring
and gregarious nature he went as much among the half-breeds--or 'metis',
as they are called--and Indians as among the officers of the Hudson's Bay
Company and the white settlers. He had ever been credited with having a
philosophical turn of mind; and this was accompanied by a certain strain
of impulsiveness or daring. He had been accustomed all his life to make
up his mind quickly and, because he was well enough off to bear the
consequences of momentary rashness in commercial investments, he was not
counted among the transgressors. He had his own fortune; he was not
drawing upon a common purse. It was a different matter when he