“It is a great disappointment, monsieur,” Père Le Clercq confessed. He looked at Stone Girl accusingly. “Why did you tell Madame Corbusier and Major Scott these things?”

“I don’t tell I look like my mother,” she testified. “I am dark. Never Laugh tell me I look like my father.”

“Who is this Never Laugh? An Indian?” the assemblyman inquired.

“I don’t know her Yengwe name. She is a prisoner like me. She tell me my father’s name.”

“And how did she say she knew that?”

“She don’t say,” Stone Girl said.

“Where is this Never Laugh now?”

“She is in the ground.”

“So?” The assemblyman turned to the priest grimly. “I’m sorry but this girl is an impostor.”

Stone Girl sat uncomprehendingly.

“Père Le Clercq. I am not taught that word. You must tell what it means.”

“It means,” said the priest, “that you are a fraud and pretender, that you have deceived us.”

“I don’t deceive,” Stone Girl told him stolidly. She pointed to the painting on the wall. “Never Laugh tell me never forget my mother is a lady. I see this lady in my mind.”

The assemblyman faced the priest.

“It’s a made-up story,” he said sternly. “Either the girl did it or, of course, the woman she calls Never Laugh could have planted the whole business in her mind. What else did she tell you, girl?”

“She tell me the lady with yellow hair will run to kiss me when I come,” Stone Girl testified. “She says the lady will know me. Maybe you ask her now to come and see if she knows me.”

The priest turned to the assemblyman.

“My wife is dead,” he said harshly. “She died three months before our daughter was returned.”

Stone Girl gave a little nameless native cry.

“Ai! Ekih! She is no more. She is gone and I can never see her again!”

The assemblyman was staring at her.

“The girl is not white. She’s Indian,” he said with distaste. Turning suddenly, he found watchers and listeners in the doorway, among them the woman in blue calico and the barman with long hair. “What are you doing here?” he demanded angrily, and they vanished.

The priest remained uncomfortable in his chair.

“This puts me in a very difficult position, monsieur,” he confessed. “I ransomed the girl from the Wyandots. Madame Corbusier in Fort Detroit paid me what I had paid. Now she expects you to reimburse me so I can reimburse her. There is also the expense of the long journey. I am only a poor servant of the Lord and beg you to find a way for Madame Corbusier to be repaid.”

“You can’t hold me responsible for your mistakes, Reverend,” Captain Stanton told him.

“The girl is a very good worker,” the priest persisted. “Madame Corbusier trained her in her own kitchen. She’s skilled in French cuisine. I am sure she would be valuable to you as a servant in your inn.”

Captain Stanton’s face remained cool.