"Was the regiment, then, totally destroyed?"
"Utterly. In France they made the regiment again with new men and new officers, and call it still by the same celebrated name."
"You say Sir William Johnson's men cut it to pieces—the Regiment de la Reine?" she asked.
"His Indians, British and Provincials, left nothing of it after that bloody day."
She sat thoughtful for a while, then, bestirring herself, drew from the deerhide packet a miniature on ivory, cracked across, and held together only by the narrow oval frame of gold.
There was no need to look twice. This man, whoever he might be, was this girl's father; and nobody who had ever seen her and this miniature could ever doubt it.
She did not speak, nor did I, conscious that her eyes had never left my face and must have read my startled mind with perfect ease.
Presently I turned the portrait over. There was a lock of hair there under the glass—bright, curly hair exactly like her own. And at first I saw nothing else. Then, as the glass-backed locket glanced in the lantern-light, I saw that on the glass something had been inscribed with a diamond. This is what I read, written across the glass:
"Jean Coeur a son coeur cheri."
I looked up at her.