"I could have knelt there at your ragged feet, in sight of all the fort!"
"Could you truly, Euan?"
"As willingly as I kneel at prayer!"
"How dear and gallant and sweet you are to me——" She broke off in dismay. "Ai-me! Heaven pity us both, for we are saying what should wait to be said, and have talked of love only while vowing not to do so!... Let loose my hand, Euan—that somehow has stolen into yours. Ai-me! This is a very maze I seem to travel in, with every pitfall hiding all I would avoid, and everywhere ambush laid for me.... Listen, dear lad, I am more pitifully at your mercy than I dreamed of. Be faithful to my faithless self that falters. Point out the path from your own strength and compassion.... I—I must find my way to Catharines-town before I can give myself to thoughts of you—to dreams of all that you inspire in me."
"Listen, Lois. This fort is as far as you may go."
"What!"
"Truly, dear maid. It is not alone the perils of an unknown country that must check you here. There is a danger that you know not of—that you never even heard of."
"A danger?"
"Worse. A threat of terrors hellish, inconceivable, terrible beyond words."
"What do you mean? The hatchet? The stake? Dear lad, may I not then venture what you soldiers brave so lightly?"