She stood and looked at me. She had forgotten the men around her. "Monsieur," she said, and this time her eyes were soft with tears, "my cousin was not so bad as he seemed. He could not help being what he was."
"I understand."
"Monsieur, you conquered the Senecas?"
"Yes. We will forget it, madame."
She looked over the heads of the lines of soldiers and grew white to the lips. I knew that she saw rows of scalps, and I could not save her from it. Yet I implored.
"Do not think of it. It is all over, madame."
Her eyes came back to me. "And Pierre? Is Pierre safe?"
"Madame, he—— He died saving me."
Her hands grasped me harder. "And Labarthe?"
"I am all that is left, madame."