"I guess your enemies, whoever they are, did not intend real harm to you for they have left your horse securely tied not far from where you lay."
"I certainly owe them my heartfelt gratitude for that much; and to you I owe, what shall I say?" She was assisting him now to rise, and her face was close to his own, while his eyes shone with the look that had dazzled her once before. "Shall I say that I owe to you not only my heartfelt gratitude, but its inmost devotion?"
Ellen trembled, with a vague feeling which was half repulsion, half enchantment. She had never in her most romantic dreams imagined anything half so sudden, nor half so eloquent as she felt this warm, openly expressed admiration to be. She hardly knew whether it pleased or frightened her most. One thing was sure, she was so anxious to get back home that she hardly said another word to her companion. As he stoopingly bent over his horse in evident weakness and raised his cap with his uninjured hand, he said in a low, thrilling tone: "This beautiful green retreat will be to me for the rest of my life a sweet, solemn temple. For here I have met not only a threatened and averted danger, but have seen and known its high priestess to be a maiden with an angel's face and a heart of gold. May heaven guard you, my sweet friend, till we meet again."
Ellen gave him one shy, half-frightened glance, and then with her heart choking her throat with violent emotion, she sped like a timid hare to her home, through fast deepening twilight. The soldier, once the girl was out of sight, coolly straightened out his arm, put the bandage in his pocket, snapped his fingers at the distant mountain peaks and rode away whistling a French love ditty.
At the door Ellen met Aunt Clara, just going out with a bowl of gruel to a neighbor's sick child. Aunt Clara noted with her ever observant eye the quickened breathing, the air of indefinable excitement about the girl, even in the gloaming twilight, and pausing to stop Ellen from entering the house, she asked quietly:
"What is the matter, dear? You pant as if you were excited, and your eyes shine so in the dark that they look like stars. Have you been frightened, and where have you been?"
"Oh, I've just been running a little, for I stayed down the river too long, and had to run to get home before dark. No, I haven't been frightened, at least not to speak of. You know," she added, with an uneasy laugh, for Ellen had not learned yet to tell a direct lie, "that girls are natural cowards, Aunt Clara, and are frightened at their own shadows."
"Well, girls should always be careful, and especially at these times. Why, Brother Winthrop says all this excitement about the army coming in has made the Indians very uneasy and uncertain, and you girls have no business away from home, especially alone. What if some of those wicked soldiers should take it into their heads to come over the valley snooping around here! Let me warn you, Ellie,—for I feel the spirit of it strongly upon me, for some cause or other,—don't you ever venture away from this house, either night or day, unless you have safe and sufficient company."
For one breathless moment Ellen longed to throw herself into those blessed, kindly arms and sob out her whole confession. But Aunt Clara turned hastily, and said as she started away, "Some day, dear, you and I will talk more about this matter. But I must hurry away now to see Sister Harris' baby."