over her face? Or had the undisturbed smile of my Cloud-Mother followed
me on the road?

Perhaps the cloud had thickened. Perhaps thunders and lightnings moved
within it. Sane people sometimes turn wild after being lost, running
from their friends, and fighting against being restrained and brought
home.

The gray dress in front of my hearth I could not see without a heaving
of the breast.

X.

How a man's life is drawn, turned, shaped, by a woman! He may deny it.
He may swagger and lie about it. Heredity, ambition, lust, noble
aspirations, weak self-indulgence, power, failure, success, have their
turns with him. But the woman he desires above all others, whose breast
is his true home, makes him, mars him.

Had she cast herself on the settle exhausted and ill after exposure?
Should I find her muttering and helpless? Worse than all, had the night
made her forget that she was a Cloud-Mother?

I drew my breath with an audible sound in the throat. Her dress stirred.
She leaned around the edge of the settle.

Eagle de Ferrier, not my Cloud-Mother, looked at me. Her features were
pinched from exposure, but flooded themselves instantly with a blush.
She snatched her shoes from the hearth and drew them on.

I was taken with such a trembling that I held to a gallery post.

Suppose this glimpse of herself had been given to me only to be
withdrawn! I was afraid to speak, and waited.

She stood up facing me.

"Louis!"

"Madame!"

"What is the matter, sire?"

"Nothing, madame, nothing."

"Where is Paul?"

I did not know what to do, and looked at her completely helpless; for if
I told her Paul was dead, she might relapse; and evasions must be
temporary.

"The Indian took him," she cried.

"But the Indian didn't kill him, Eagle."

"How do you know?"

"Because Paul came to me."

"He came to you? Where?"

"At Fort Stephenson."

"Where is my child?"

"He is at Fort Stephenson."

"Bring him to me!"

"I can't bring him, Eagle."

"Then let me go to him."

I did not know what to say to her.

"And there were Cousin Philippe and Ernestine lying across the step. I
have been thinking all night. Do you understand it?"

"Yes, I understand it, Eagle."

By the time I had come into the house her mind leaped forward in
comprehension. The blanket she had held on her shoulders fell around her
feet. It was a striped gay Indian blanket.

"You were attacked, and the settlement was burned."

"But whose