but what I should bid my lady good-bye when it suited, and I didn't want
any swearing at all--not a bit. I didn't do any. But what happened had
to be with or without any ring or book and 'Forasmuch as.' There had
been so much funeral and sudden death that a marriage would be a godsend
anyhow. So the old Esquimaux got our two hands in his, babbled away in
half-English, half-Esquimaux, with the girl's eyes shining like a she-
moose over a dying buck, and about the time we kissed each other, his
head dropped back--and that is all there was about that."

Gaston now kept his eyes on his listeners. He was aware that his story
must sound to them as brutal as might be, but it was a phase of his life,
and, so far as he could, he wanted to start with a clean sheet; not out
of love of confidence, for he was self-contained, but he would have
enough to do to shepherd his future without shepherding his past. He saw
that Lady Belward had a sickly fear in her face, while Sir William had
gone stern and hard.

He went on:

"It saved the situation, did that marriage; though it was no marriage you
will say. Neither was it one way, and I didn't intend at the start to
stand by it an hour longer than I wished. But she was more than I looked
for, and it seems to me that she saved my life that winter, or my reason
anyhow. There had been so much tragedy that I used to wonder every day
what would happen before night; and that's not a good thing for the brain
of a chap of twenty-one or two. The funny part of it is that she wasn't
a pagan--not a bit. She could read and speak English in a sweet old-
fashioned way, and she used to sing to me--such a funny, sorry little
voice she had--hymns the Moravians had taught her, and one or two English
songs. I taught her one or two besides, 'Where the Hawthorn Tree is