looked unhurried
and reflective. He stretched out a long, yellow arm in simulation of
contented weariness. "I wonder why you wish to keep the prisoner with
you longer," he marveled.

And then I laughed. I looked him full in the face and laughed again.
"But I have no prisoner. Unless, indeed, matrimony be a sort of
bondage. I travel with my wife, with Madame de Montlivet, nee
Starling, monsieur."

I knew that I had cut him in a vital part, but he held himself well.
An oath burst from him, but it did not move his great, immobile face
into betraying lines. Yet when he tried to speak his voice trailed off
in an unmeaning rattle. He tried twice, and his hands were
sweat-beaded. Then he heaved his great bulk upward and stood over me,
his baboon arms reaching for my throat.

"The marriage was honest? Speak."

I could respect that feeling. "Father Nouvel married us," I replied.
"We found him at the Pottawatamie Islands. I marvel that you did not
hear news of us from there, monsieur."

He sank back on the blanket. "I did not go there. I sprained my
ankle." He talked still with that curious rattling in his voice. "I
lost time and the damned Indians left me. When did you discover"----

"I married madame as soon as I discovered. Monsieur, you are of her
family. I can assure you that I have shown your cousin all the respect
and consideration in my power."

He looked at me as if I were some smirking carpet knight who prated of
conventions when a man was dying.

"Where is she?"

"In my camp, monsieur."

"Take me to her."

"Monsieur, I must refuse."

He opened his mouth with a look that cursed me, but before the words
came he thought twice and changed his front. He spoke calmly. "I am
her guardian and her cousin. I was her intended husband. You are a
gentleman. I ask you to bring me to my cousin, monsieur."

His tone of calm possession fired me, I remembered what he was, and I
enumerated his titles in order.

"Yes. You are the guardian who would have married her for her estates;
you are the cousin who played the poltroon and outraged her pride of
family; you are the lover who abandoned her,--abandoned her to torture
and the tomahawk. Is it strange that it is her wish never to see you?
You will spare your pride some hurts if you avoid her in the future,
monsieur."

The great face turned yellow to the eyes. "She told you this?"

"I am no mind reader, monsieur."

And then he turned away.