uld have gone to her my feet were manacled, for
this was not the woman of my dreams. This woman wore trailing silk,
and her hair was coifed. And she was walking away from me; no instinct
told her that I was near. She was walking away, and Starling walked
beside her. I did not remember that I was wounded and a sorry figure;
I did not remember that I was dressed in skins. I remembered that I
had married this woman by force, and that she had once wished of her
own accord to marry Starling. And now she walked with him; she wore a
gown he must have brought; she had forgiven him. A hot spark ran from
my heart to my brain. I turned and started toward the beach.

I heard a breath from the throats around me and a stretching of cramped
limbs. Cadillac's arm dropped round my shoulders, and I felt the
pressure of his fingers.

"Come to my quarters," he said. "You have mail waiting. And we will
find you something to wear. Dubisson is near your size."

And so I let him lead me away. I pressed him for news of the Indian
situation, but he only shrugged and said, "Wait. Matters are quiescent
enough on the surface. We will talk later."

It was strange. I bathed and dressed quite as I had done many times
before, when I had come in from months in camp; quite as if there were
no woman, and as if massacre were not knocking at the window. But I
carried a black weight that made my tongue leaden, and I excused myself
from table on the plea of going through my mail.

The news the letters brought was good but unimportant. In the Montreal
packet was a sealed line in a woman's hand.

"I have tracked my miniature," it read. "I mourned its disappearance;
I should welcome its return. Can you find excuses for the man who took
it from me? If you can, I beg that you let me hear them. He was once
my friend, and I am loath to think of him hardly." The note bore no
signature. It was dated at the governor's house at Montreal, and
directed to me at Michillimackinac.

I was alone with Dubisson and I turned to him. "Madame Bertheau is at
Montreal?"

He shrugged. "So I hear."

"She has come to see her brother?"

Now he grinned. "Ostensibly, monsieur."

There was no need to hide my feeling from Dubisson, so I sat with my
chin sunk low and thought it over. I was ill pleased. I had been long
and openly in Madame Bertheau's train, and this was a land of gossips.
I turned to the lieutenant.

"Madame de Montlivet, where is s