ng, very
much better. She dressed, and then wanted us to get a conveyance to
take her to Quebec. We told her that you had gone for a doctor, and
that she had better wait. But this, she said, was impossible. She
would not think of it. She had to go to Quebec as soon as possible, and
entreated us to find some conveyance. So we found a wagon at a
neighbor's, threw some straw in it and some skins over it, and she went
away."

"She went!" I repeated, in an imbecile way.

"Oui, monsieur."

"And didn't she leave any word?"

"Monsieur?"

"Didn't she leave any message for--for me?"

"Non, monsieur."

"Not a word?" I asked, mournfully and despairingly.

The reply of the _habitant_ was a crushing one:

"_Pas un mot_, _monsieur_!"

The doctor burst into a shriek of sardonic laughter.

CHAPTER IX.

BY ONE'S OWN FIRESIDE.--THE COMFORTS OF A BACHELOR.--CHEWING THE CUD
OF SWEET AND BITTER FANCY.--A DISCOVERY FULL OF MORTIFICATION AND
EMBARRASSMENT.--JACK RANDOLPH AGAIN.--NEWS FROM THE SEAT OF WAR.

By six o'clock in the evening I was back in my room again. The doctor
had chaffed me so villanously all the way back that my disappointment
and mortification had vanished, and had given place to a feeling of
resentment. I felt that I had been ill-treated. After saving a girl's
life, to be dropped so quietly and so completely, was more than flesh
and blood could stand. And then there was that confounded doctor. He
fairly revelled in my situation, and forgot all about his fatigue.
However, before I left him, I extorted from him a promise to say
nothing about it, swearing if he didn't I'd sell out and quit the
service. This promise he gave, with the remark that he would reserve
the subject for his own special use.

Once within my own room, I made myself comfortable in my own quiet way,
viz.:

1. A roaring, red-hot fire.
2. Curtains close drawn.
3. Sofa pulled up beside said fire.
4. Table beside sofa.
5. Hot water.
6. Whiskey.
7. Tobacco.
8. Pipes.
9. Fragrant aromatic steam.
10. Sugar.
11. Tumblers.
12. Various other things not necessary to mention, all of which
contributed to throw over my perturbed spirit a certain divine calm.

Under such circumstances, while every moment brought forward some new
sense of rest and tranquillity, my mind wandered back in a kind of lazy
reverie over the events of the past two days.

Once more I wandered over the crumbling ice; once more I floundered
through the deep