to place the
resemblance, I should say that I saw it in the cast of the eye, and
heard it in the voice. The similitude of tone was striking. Like
Lilian's, it was a voice of that rich clarion sound with which beautiful
women are gifted--those having the full round throat so proudly
possessed by the damsels of Andalusia. Of course, reflected I, the
likeness must be accidental. There was no possibility of its being
otherwise; and I had not a thought that it was so. I was simply
reminded of looks and tones that needed not that to recall them. The
souvenirs so excited hindered me from making an immediate reply.

"Your observations are somewhat singular?" I remarked at length.
"Surely you have not verified them by your own experience?"

"I have. Yes--and too sadly, ever to think them otherwise than just. I
have had little reason to love those of my own colour--that is, if I am
to consider myself a white."

"But you are so, are you not?"

"Not altogether. I have Indian blood in my veins."

"Not much, I should fancy?"

"Enough to give me Indian inclinings--and, I fear, also a dislike to
those of my own complexion."

"Indeed?"

"Perhaps less from instinct than experience. Ah! stranger! I have
reason. Is it not enough that all have proved false--father, lover,
husband?"

"Husband! You are married, then?"

"No."

"You have been?"

"No."

"Why did you say _husband_!"

"A husband only in name. I have been married, but never a wife; wedded,
but never--"

The speaker paused. I could feel her arm quivering around my waist.
She was under the influence of some terrible emotion!

"Yours must be a strange story?" I remarked, with a view of inducing
her to reveal it. "You have greatly excited my curiosity; but I know
that I have no claim to your confidence."

"You may yet win it."

"Tell me how."

"You say you intend returning to the States. I may have a commission
for you; and you shall then hear my story. It is not much. Only a
simple maiden, whose lover has been faithless--her father untrue to his
paternal trust--her husband a cheat, a perjured villain."

"Your relationships have been singularly unfortunate; but your words
only mystify me the more. I should give much to know who you are, and
what strange chance has led you hither?"

"Not now--time presses. Your comrades, if still alive, are in peril.
That is your affair; but mine is that the Red-Hand may not escape. If
he do, there