"I will certainly see you in the morning, Mademoiselle, but there may be no time for more than a word, and so I take this opportunity to say good-by."
"I will not say good-by, Monsieur"—with the old wilful toss of the head. "I will tell your captain he is not to let you go back to Philadelphia so soon. But no matter where you go, I will never say good-by; it shall always be au revoir."
She smiled up at me with such bewitching grace that perforce I smiled back at her, and if she had but asked me this evening, as she had on many others, to linger in her cozy cabin for a game of piquet, I would not have had the courage to say no. But she did not ask me, and, much as I longed to stay, there was nothing for me to do but to pick up my hat and say, with the best grace I could:
"I thank you with all my heart, Mademoiselle, and, for to-night at least, au revoir!"
An hour later my captain and I were leaning on the rail in the stern of the boat, looking up at the tree-crowned bluffs standing dark against the moonlight and listening to the soft lapping of the water against the boat's sides. We did not realize that we were hidden by a great pile of peltries, as high as our heads, which Captain Clarke was taking back to Kentucky with him to sell on commission for Pierre Chouteau, until we heard voices. Mademoiselle and Clotilde had evidently found a seat on the other side of the pile of pelts, and mademoiselle was speaking in plaintive tone:
"And they would not let me bring Leon with me! He at least would have loved me and been a companion and protector when all the world forsake me."
Then Clotilde's rich negro voice:
"Mademoiselle, I find out why they not let you bring Leon. Mr. Yorke tell me last night. Leon shot, the night before we come away."
There was a heartrending cry, and then a torrent of swift French:
"Leon shot! My Leon! Why have they not told me? Oh, the villains! Who shot him, Clotilde? My poor angel! My Leon! No one left to love your poor mistress!" And much more that I cannot recall, I was so excited and angry that that rascal Yorke should have caused her such needless pain. But every word of Clotilde's next speech was graven on my heart as with a knife of fire.