onor with her presence!

Yet not quite the same, it seemed to me. There were some little things
missing, just as there were some little things missing from her
appearance. For instance, these draperies at the right, which formerly
had cut off the Napoleon bed at its end of the room, now were of
blankets and not of silk. The bed itself was not piled deep in down, but
contained, as I fancied from my hurried glance, a thin mattress, stuffed
perhaps with straw. A roll of blankets lay across its foot. As I gazed
to the farther extremity of this side of the long suite, I saw other
evidences of change. It was indeed as though Helena von Ritz, creature
of luxury, woman of an old, luxurious world, exotic of monarchical
surroundings, had begun insensibly to slip into the ways of the rude
democracy of the far frontiers.

I saw all this; but ere I had finished my first hurried glance I had
accepted her, as always one must, just as she was; had accepted her
surroundings, preposterously impossible as they all were from any
logical point of view, as fitting to herself and to her humor. It was
not for me to ask how or why she did these things. She had done them;
because, here they were; and here was she. We had found England's woman
on the Columbia!

"Yes," said she at length, slowly, "yes, I now believe it to be fate."

She had not yet smiled. I took her hand and held it long. I felt glad to
see her, and to take her hand; it seemed pledge of friendship; and as
things now were shaping, I surely needed a friend.

At last, her face flushing slightly, she disengaged her hand and
motioned me to a seat. But still we stood silent for a few moments.
"Have you _no_ curiosity?" said she at length.

"I am too happy to have curiosity, my dear Madam."

"You will not even ask me why I am here?" she insisted.

"I know. I have known all along. You are in the pay of England. When I
missed you at Montreal, I knew you had sailed on the _Modeste_ for
Oregon We knew all this, and planned for it. I have come across by land
to meet you. I have waited. I greet you now!"

She looked me now clearly in the face. "I am not sure," said she at
length, slowly.

"Not sure of what, Madam? When you travel on England's warship," I
smiled, "you travel as the guest of England herself. If, then, you are
not for England, in God's name, _whose friend are you?"_

"Whose friend am I?" she answered slowly. "I say to you that I do not
know. Nor do I know who is my