These stern words suddenly checked the passion that was boiling in the girl's heart: she let her eyes fall, and replied:—
"Is that all you have to say to me?"
"No, it is not all; and I have a final question to ask you."
"Speak, sir, as I am condemned to listen to you."
"I will not occupy much of your time."
"Oh, sir," she answered ironically, "my time cannot be employed better than in conversing with so polished a gentleman as yourself."
"I thank you for the good opinion you are kind enough to have of a poor hunter like myself," he replied, with a tinge of sarcasm; "and I now reach the second question I wished to ask you."
"In truth, it seems, sir, that like the juces de letras, your accomplices," she added bitterly, "you have classified in your head the questions that compose my examination: for, in spite of what you did me the honour of telling me, I persist in seeing only an examination in what it pleases you to call our conversation."
"As you please, madam," Valentine replied with imperturbable coolness. "Will you explain to me how it is, that, after having been treated, according to your own statement, by us so kindly, you laid aside all gratitude and feelings of honour last night, to join two villains in a plot for carrying off a girl to whom you owe your life, and handing her over as a slave to the most ferocious Indians on the prairies—the Sioux?"