The girl's face was now in such a confusion of distress that I almost, but not quite, pitied her. Ere she could find words to reply, however, her sister was at her side, catching her hands, murmuring at her ear.
"Why, Prudence, child," she said, "don't you see it all? Didn't you see it all? How splendidly Marc saved us" (I blessed the tact which led her to put the first credit on Marc)—"Marc and this most brave and gallant gentleman? It was one of the savages who struck Marc down, before my eyes, as he was fighting to save us. That dreadful story was a lie, Prudence; don't you see?"
The maid saw clearly enough, and with a mighty gladness. She was for throwing herself down again beside the lad to cover his face with kisses—and shut off the air which he so needed. But I thrust her aside. She had believed Marc a traitor. Marc might forgive her when he could think for himself. I was in no mind to.
She looked at me with unutterable reproach, her eyes filling and running over, but she drew back submissively.
"I know," she said, "I don't deserve that you should let me go near him. But—I think—I think he would want me to, sir! See, he wants me! Oh, let me!" And I perceived that Marc's eyes had opened. They saw no one but the maid, and his left hand reached out to her.
"Oh, well!" said I, grimly. And thereafter it seemed to me that the lad got on with less air than men are accustomed to need when they would make recovery from a swoon.
I turned to Mizpah Hanford; and I wondered what sort of eyes were in Marc's head, that he should see Prudence when Mizpah was by. Before I could speak, Mizpah began to make excuses for her sister. With heroic fortitude she choked back her own grief, and controlled her voice with a brave simplicity. Coming from her lips, these broken excuses seemed sufficient—though to this day I question whether I ought to have relented so readily. She pleaded, and I listened, and was content to listen so long as she would continue to plead. But there was little I clearly remember. At last, however, these words, with which she concluded, aroused me:—
"How could we any longer refuse to believe," she urged, "when the good priest confessed to us plainly, after much questioning, that it was Monsieur Marc de Mer who had sent the savages to steal us, and had told them just the place to find us, and the hour? The savages had told us the same thing at first, taunting us with it when we threatened them with Marc's vengeance. You see, Monsieur, they had plainly been informed by some one of our little retreat at the riverside, and of the hour at which we were wont to frequent it. Yet we repudiated the tale with horror. Then yesterday, when the good priest told us the same thing, with a reluctance which showed his horror of it, what could we do but believe? Though it did seem to us that if Marc were false there could be no one true. The priest believed it. He was kind and pitiful, and tried to get the savages to set us free. He talked most earnestly, most vehemently to them; but it was in their own barbarous language, and of course we could not understand. He told us at last that he could do nothing at the time, but that he would exert himself to the utmost to get us out of their hands by and by. Then he went away. And then—"
"And then, Madame," said I, "your little one was taken from you at his orders!"
"Why, what do you mean, Monsieur?" she gasped, her great sea-coloured eyes opening wide with fresh terror. "At his orders? By the orders of that kind priest?"