Why had Marie de Sabrevois wished to take Ellen to Albany; and what errand had they there? Nay, what errand had Ellen there, now that Marie de Sabrevois wished to remain behind? And there was always that letter Nathaniel had carried—that letter about Montgolfier and the eight thousand kisses; and so I came back to the first and most important of all the questions: Who was serving a British employer by spreading the calumnies against Arnold?

My thoughts pursued themselves in circles, getting nowhere and accomplishing nothing.

Zelph, I saw, had burned the birch-bark plates and smothered the fire with sods, and now was ambling along the shore of the narrows with a fishing line protruding from the pocket of his moose-skin breeches. On the shore below I could hear a rattling and thumping, and the hoarse voice of Cap Huff issuing orders and countermanding most of them as soon as issued; so I knew Tom Bickford and the others were transferring Arnold’s baggage to the borrowed whale-boat. Nathaniel, newly shaven, had returned to stand by Ellen in the shade of the tent; and the coolness and freshness of his appearance made me the more conscious of my own bewilderment.

It was probably that very coolness of Nathaniel’s that sent Ellen’s eyes toward my scarecrow figure and my beggar’s garments, stained and tattered by our labors on the Richelieu.

“If you must think so fiercely,” she called to me, “you would do well to let me stitch at your jacket while you think.” As an afterthought she added: “Then something, at least, will be accomplished.”

I came slowly down from the pile of timbers, wondering whether I was really as tiresome as I must appear to these gay young people. “You can do more than that for me,” I told Ellen. “You can answer some of the questions that have worried me: questions about yourself.”

“Worried?” she asked. “You have worried about me? There are questions about me that have worried you?”

I was certain, when I saw the candor and innocence of the eyes she raised to mine, that with a little care I could ask her what I pleased, and never arouse her suspicions.

“Yes,” I said, “I was worrying about your journey to Albany.” I coughed, to let her see I was wholly at ease. “I was worrying, and wondering, too. I was really wondering why your aunt was so anxious to have you go to Albany, even when she was well. Were you perhaps to be put in charge of Mr. Leonard there?”

“Mr. Leonard?” Ellen asked. “Mr. Leonard? I do not know any Mr. Leonard!”

I chanced a shot in the dark. “Perhaps you know him as Lanaudiere. It may be that you are only to deliver a letter to Mr. Lanaudiere.”