Captain Stephens was amazed at the deftness with which the young scout prepared the repast; and he lay upon the grass, with his eyes rivetted upon the nimble, noiseless, graceful lad. It puzzled him that the mysterious youth should persistently keep his head averted, and he was the more strongly decided to discover his identity. When the meal was ended Annette whispered,
"Julie will come with us; I never could tell him in the light of the fire." Then turning towards Captain Stephens, with eyes looking timidly down, "If monsieur will walk forth a little with me and mon frere, I shall tell him something."
Certainly, he would go, and was upon his feet beside the mysterious boy, whose colour had now become most fitful, changing from pale olive to the dye of the damask rose. They went beyond the bluff, and out upon the prairie, Stephens marvelling much, though speaking no word, what the handsome boy had to say to him.
"Monsieur," she began in a soft, trembling voice, "has wondered who I am, and thinks he has heard my voice before. He has heard it—at the cottage of my father."
Captain Stephens turned around and gazed with amazement at the lad.
"He has heard it elsewhere, too," Annette went on—"he heard it on the brimming river; he saved me from death below the chute."
"Heavens, Annette Marton! Sweet, generous, noble girl, why had I not guessed the truth," and he stood rapt with gratitude and admiration before her. Kindly dusk of the starless prairie that hid the blushes and confusion of the girl!
Then in a low tone, as they walked aimlessly about upon the plain, she told him the story of her adventures, all of which my reader already knows. Then they returned; and when they neared the camp fire, Annette with a shy little run disappeared into her tent, murmuring softly,
"Au revoir, Monsieur."
Her dreams were bewildering, yet delicious, that night; but there ran through them all a feeling of shame that he should have detected her in those unwomanly clothes. Indeed, the embarrassment went further than this; and once she imagined, the dear maiden, that she was by the edge of an amber-green pool fringed with rowan bushes and their vermillion berries, and that as she was about to step into it for a bath, there occurred what happened in the case of Artemis and her maids, the one upon whom her heart was set taking the place of Actaon. She gave a great scream and awoke, to find Julie sitting up and looking with wide affrighted eyes through the dusk at her mistress.