She ran for the protection of the cottage with Toto at her heels. Brent had no course but to follow. He stood in the doorway and looked at the others before him. It was a homelike, cozy, if crude room. François sat in a chair by the fireplace. Gale stood behind his chair while in the corner Antoinette was watching him in surprise, her sewing now forgotten.
“How—how do you do,” Brent began uncertainly. “I——”
“Enter, Monsieur,” François invited courteously, “and be seated by the fire. The day is cold and you have come a long way?” The last of his speech was a question.
Brent inclined his head and took the chair opposite François, his eyes on Gale. In the half daylight and glow from the fire he was more certain than ever of her identity. Yet if it were Gale, surely she would know him?
Without preliminary Brent spoke in French. “That girl,” he nodded toward Gale, “is she—your sister also, Monsieur Bouchard?”
François smiled faintly. “You know me, Monsieur? Yet I do not know you.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I quite forgot myself. I am Brent Stockton,” Brent continued. “You see, for weeks I have been searching Canada for a girl. We crashed in an airplane some little distance from here. I left her in the plane and went for help, but while I was absent she disappeared. Since then I have not been able to find her. This young lady is very much like her—very much,” he murmured again.
François nodded and frowned into the fire. “I was afraid we were causing someone a great deal of anxiety, but it could not be helped. You see I injured my foot the day after, and I have not been able to go to the village to notify the authorities. My sister knows very little about such things.”
“Yes?” Brent murmured. He was waiting impatiently.
“I found Mademoiselle, here,” François looked up at Gale and the two exchanged smiles, though she did not understand his French words, “in a wrecked airship weeks ago. She was pinioned in her seat by a fallen tree branch which I moved.”