“Yes, dear; but you must not talk now. I will tell you the rest.
“After he had stabbed you Simon dropped his knife and fled. I ran to you, but you were as one dead. Captain Carteret and some of the men carried you into the house. We have nursed you ever since, Madame Carteret and I.”
I looked at Lucille’s face, noting that she had grown thin and pale, but yet more beautiful. I pressed her hand to my lips.
“Simon did not escape,” she went on after a pause. “Not long afterward his body was found in the woods, an Indian arrow through his heart. So now, dear, horrible as it all was, our enemies are gone. We have only ourselves left.”
Then while the shadows began to lengthen, the day to die, I fell asleep again. Not as before, disturbed by unpleasant dreams, but as a tired child. When I awoke in the morning I felt like a new man. The blood of health flowed through my veins; I felt the strength coming back to me. Lucille entered; a streak of sunshine. She smiled at me. I had propped myself up in bed, and that sign that I was on the mend seemed to give her pleasure.
“We must have Master Graydon in to see the improvement,” she said. “He will doubtless change the physic, giving you some herbs that will put you quickly on the way to recovery.”
“I pray so,” I answered, “for I am full sick of staying here like a woman.”
“Are you then so ready to leave us?”
“Only that I may make ready to stay with you forever,” at which Lucille blushed prettily.
We talked, or rather Lucille did, and I listened, of many things. She told how she had heard I was to be in command of the military force of Elizabeth; that I was already considered the Captain. Every day since I had been wounded some of the men had called to see how I was. As for Captain Carteret, he had gone to London on business, and would not return to the Colony until spring.