"I do not know her name. When he returned from the horrors of Cherry Valley Sir Frederick Haldimand refused to see him. Yet he managed to make love to Sir Frederick's kinswoman—a child—as I was when he took me——"
She closed her eyes. I saw the lashes all wet again, but her voice did not tremble: "He is at Niagara with his Rangers—or was. And—when I came to him he laughed at me, bidding me seek a new lover at the fort——"
Her voice strangled. Twisting her fingers, she sat there, eyes closed, dumb, miserable. At last she gasped out: "O Quiver-bearer, with a white voice and a skin scarce whiter than my own, though your nation be sundered from the Long House, though I be an outcast of clans and nations, speak to me kindly, for my sadness is bitter, and the ghost of my dead honor confronts me in every forest-trail!" She stretched out her arms piteously:
"Teach me, brother; instruct me; heal my bruised heart of hate for this young man who was my undoing—cleanse my fierce, desirous heart. I love him no longer; I—I dare not hate him lest I slay him ere he rights my wrongs. My sorrow is heavier than I can bear—and I am young, O sachem—not yet eighteen—until the snow flies."
She laid her face in her hands once more; through her slim fingers the bright tears fell slowly.
"Are you Christian, little sister?" I asked, wondering.
"I do not know. They say so. A brave Jesuit converted me ere I was unstrapped from the cradle-board—ere I could lisp or toddle. God knows. My own brother died in war-paint; my grandmother was French Margaret, my mother—if she be my mother—is the Huron witch of Wyoming; some call her Catrine, some Esther. Yet I was chaste—till he took me—chaste as an Iroquois maid. Thus has he wrought with me. Teach me to forgive him!"
And this the child of Catrine Montour? This that bestial creature they described to me as some slim, fierce temptress of the forests?
"Listen," I said gently; "if you are wedded by a magistrate, you are his wife; yet if that magistrate falsely witnesses against you, you can not prove it. I would give all I have to prove your marriage. Do you understand?"
She looked at me, uncomprehending.