He rested again on his oars, and said, with deliberation:

"Stark 'kindly offered' did he? Well, whenever Ben Stark 'kindly'
offers anything, I'm in on the play. He's had his eye on you for the
last three months, and he wants you, but he slipped a cog when he
gave me the oars. You needn't be afraid, though, I'm going to do the
square thing by you. We'll stop in at the Mission and be married,
and then we'll see whether we want to go to St. Michael's or not,
though personally I'm for going back to Flambeau."

During the hours while he had waited for Necia to discover his
identity, the man's mind had not been idle; he had determined to
take what fortune tossed into his lap. Had she been the unknown,
unnoticed half-breed of a month or two before, he would not have
wasted thought upon priests or vows, but now that a strange fate had
worked a change in her before the world, he accepted it.

The girl's beauty, her indifference, the mistaken attitude of Stark
urged him, and, strongest of all, he was drawn by his cupidity, for
she would be very rich, so the knowing ones said. Doubtless that was
why Stark wanted her, and, being a man who acknowledged no fidelity
to his kind or his Creator, Runnion determined to outwit his
principal, Doret, Burrell, and all the rest. It was a chance to win
much at the risk of nothing, and he was too good a gambler to let it
pass.

With his brusque declaration Necia realized her position--that she
was a weak, lonely girl, just come into womanhood, so cursed by good
looks that men wanted her, so stained by birth that they would not
take her honestly; realized that she was alone with a dissolute