She sat motionless. He did not go on, and 278 yet each moment seemed to bring them closer in understanding. After a little while she said huskily:––
“You cared––you cared like that?”
She was not looking toward him, and she could not see him slowly bow his head; but there was an answer in his silence.
“You cared––when you made the speech––”
“Yes.”
She looked at the stalwart, bowed figure. She was beginning to understand what he had done, that in his pledge to the chiefs he had triumphed over a love greater than she had supposed a man could bear for a woman.
“A soldier cannot always choose his way,” he was saying. “I have never chosen mine. It was the orders of my superior that brought us here, that brought this suffering to you. If it were not for these orders, the Onondagas would be my friends, and because of that, your friends. It has always been like this; I have built up that others might tear down. I thought for a few hours that something else was to come to me. I should have known better. It was when you took the daisy––” she raised her hand and touched the withered flower. “I did not reason. I knew I was breaking my trust, and 279 I did not care. After all, perhaps even that was the best thing. It gave me strength and hope to carry on the fight. It was you, then,––not New France. Now the dream is over, and again it is New France. It must be that.”
“Yes,” she said, “it must be.”
“I have had wild thoughts. I have meant to ask you to let me hope, once this is over and you safe at Frontenac. I could not believe that what comes so easily to other men is never to come to me. I cannot ask that now.”
She looked at him, and a sudden glow came into her eyes.