Stone Girl kept her lips closed but Madame Corbusier leaned forward.

“It’s strange, Major, that you should ask that. I remember Claire told me once what her old friend Never Laugh had told her. She said that when Claire’s white father gave orders in the kitchen, the pans hanging on the wall would rattle.”

At that the officer jumped to his feet. He looked tall and overpowering pacing up and down the room. When he turned to the girl his voice swept all before it.

“I want you to listen now, child. Did you ever hear the name of Peter Stanton? Don’t tell me you haven’t, because I think you have. Look at me. Doesn’t the name Captain Peter Stanton sound familiar in your ears?”

At the sound of it something happened to Stone Girl. Far back inside of her she felt a door open. The woman Never Laugh, long in the ground, came out. She could feel her comb in her hair and hear her voice in her ears. Forgotten childhood sensations flooded her with unaccountable warmth, melting and thawing. And now she could keep up the pretended lapse of memory no longer. She bowed her head.

“And the name Susquehanna, of the river?” he went on relentlessly. “You must remember that, too?”

She did not raise her head, only formed the name of the river with her lips.

The big man stood in triumph staring at her.

“I knew it,” he said. “For some time now I felt she could be no other than Peter Stanton’s missing daughter. Her first name, I think, is Mary.”

At the name, Madame Corbusier crossed herself.

“Thank God she is of Christian parents then.”

“Very much indeed,” the officer agreed. “Her father is assemblyman, innkeeper, and master surveyor for the proprietaries. Mrs. Stanton was originally a Philadelphia lady. She has beautiful flaxen hair as her daughter remembers. Mrs. Stanton’s father was William Hamilton, who married into the family of the proprietaries. I stayed with the Captain and his lady in their spacious log inn on the Susquehanna two or three years ago and heard the whole tragic story. His daughter was taken by the savages at five years of age and never recovered. They pinned great hopes on General Bouquet’s expedition and went to Carlisle to meet the captives when the general and his army returned. I didn’t see them afterward but I heard that their daughter was not found among them. The disappointment broke the mother’s health. She believed the hard life of the savages had killed her daughter.”

Madame Corbusier crossed herself again. She looked at Stone Girl with brimming eyes, then at the Yengwe officer.

“It is the will of le bon Dieu, Major, that brought you to Fort Detroit. Indeed, I see the hand of God in all from the missionary journey of Père Le Clercq to his bringing Claire to my door. Only one thing troubles me.”

“And what is that?” asked the great man benignly.

“The house of pink stone Claire says she remembers.”