After that the downward plunge is swift. I had said
this many times, and I knew Pierre must be recalling it.
And so I was sore with fate. Wounded, skin-clad, I was not heroic in
look; it was hard to be heroic in mind. I had jeopardized the chance
of an empire for a woman. But that proved nothing. The weakest could
do that. It must be shown that I could justify my sacrifice.
These were irritations, yet they were but the surface of my suffering.
Underneath was the grinding, never-ceasing ache of anxiety. What was
happening at Michillimackinac? Would I reach there in time? I could
do nothing but sit and think. Always, from dawn to dusk, my impatient
spirit fretted and pushed at that canoe, but my hands were idle. I
tried paddling with my left hand, but it dislocated my bandages, and I
did not dare. I was in some pain, but exposed as I was, broiled by the
sun and drenched by showers, I yet mended daily. I ate well and drank
deep of the cold lake water and felt my strength come. My cut was
healing wholesomely without fever, and Pierre washed and bandaged it
twice a day. He told me with many a twist of his hanging lip that it
was well for me that he was there.
But on the point of his being there I had new light.
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