"For a while he paid me no attention, save in an absent-minded way to pat my arm and say, 'There, there, child! There's nothing to it—no, not anything to weep for. In less than half an hour my wife and I will be together, listening while Raphael speaks—or Christ, perhaps, or Leonardo.'
"Twice the brigade chaplain came to the tent, but seeing me retired. The third time he appeared my foster father said: 'He's come to talk to me of Christ and Raphael. It is pleasant to hear his kind assurance that the journey to them is a swift one, done in the twinkling of an eye.... So—I will say good-bye. Now go, my child.'
"Locked in my desperate embrace, his wandering gaze came back and met my terror-stricken eyes. And after another moment a slow colour came into his wasted face. 'Lois,' he said, 'before I go to join that matchless company, I think you ought to know that which will cause you to grieve less for me.... And so I tell you that I am not your father.... We found you at our door in Caughnwagha, strapped to a Seneca cradle-board. Nor had you any name. We did not seek you, but, having you so, bowed to God's will and suffered you to remain with us. We strove to do our duty by you——' His vague gaze wandered toward the tent door where the armed guard stood, terrible and grim and ragged. Then he unloosened my suddenly limp arms about him, muttering to himself of something he'd forgotten; and, rummaging in his pockets found it presently—a packet laced in deerskin. 'This,' he said, 'is all we ever knew of you. It should be yours. Good-bye.'
"I strove to speak, but he no longer heard me, and asked the guard impatiently why the Chaplain tarried. And so I crept forth into the dark of dawn, more dead than living. And presently the rising sun blinded my tear-drowned eyes, where I was kneeling in a field under a tall tree.... I heard the dead-march rolling from the drums, and saw them passing, black against the sunrise.... Then, filing slowly as the seconds dragged, a thousand years passed in processional during the next half hour—ending in a far rattle of musketry and a light smoke blowing east across the fields——"
She passed her fingers across her brow, clearing it of the clinging curls.
"They played a noisy march—afterward. I saw the ragged ranks wheel and manoeuvre, stepping out Briskly to the jolly drums and fifes.... I stood by the grave while the detail filled it cheerily.... Then I went back to the farm house, through the morning dew and sunshine.
"When I had opened my packet and had understood its contents, I made of my clothes a bundle and took the highway to ask of all the world where lay the road to the vale Yndaia, and where might be found the Regiment de la Reine. Wherever was a camp of soldiers, there I loitered, asking the same question, day after day, month after month. I asked of Indians—our Hudson guides, and the brigaded White Plains Indians. None seemed to know—or if they did they made no answer. And the soldiers did not know, and only laughed, taking me for some camp wanton——"
Again she passed her slender hand slowly across her eyes, shaking her head.
"That I am not wholly bad amazes me at times.... I wonder if you know how hunger tampers with the will? I mean more than mere hunger; I mean that dreadful craving never completely satisfied—so that the ceaseless famine gnaws and gnaws while the sick mind still sickens, brooding over what the body seems to need of meat and drink and warmth—day after day, night after night, endless and terrible." She flushed, but continued calmly: "I had nigh sold myself to some young officer—some gay and heedless boy—a dozen times that winter—for a bit of bread—and so I might lie warm.... The army starved at Valley Forge.... God knows where and how I lived and famished through all that bitter blackness.... An artillery horse had trodden on my hip where I lay huddled in a cow-barn under the straw close to the horses, for the sake of warmth. I hobbled for a month.... And so ill was I become in mind as well as body that had any man been kind—God knows what had happened! And once I even crept abroad meaning to take what offered. Do you deem me vile, Euan?"
"No—no—" I could not utter another word.