“No, I have no relatives. The first time you spoke with me, you told me about your sister Jane.” She shot a quick glance at me and then added hurriedly, “I could make myself useful, and I’m said to have an even disposition. Would your mother find a place for me in your house, do you think?”

I looked around at the sentries. They stood stolidly at my very shoulder. I wanted to kill them—to do anything that would let me be alone with Ellen.

I fumbled for words. “Why,” I said, “my mother—my sisters—they’d be—I mean, they couldn’t—we’d love you—everyone—–”

She nodded tranquilly; so I knew she understood; but the knowledge made no easier the choking fullness of my heart.

“Now,” she said, “I’ve saved my best news for the last. When I had a horror for you, I went to Marie at once. As soon as I had told her what was in my mind, she made me a promise. She promised immediately, without a moment’s hesitation, that you would have the best of treatment—you and your brother also. It will be necessary, perhaps, to allow the Indians to take away some prisoners, she said; but not you. They shall not take you or your brother. That shows you how kind she is; how good. She knows you dislike her; and if she wished, she could do you great harm. She has great influence, my aunt has. General Burgoyne sees her often and asks her advice. He thinks highly of her—highly.”

“No doubt he does,” I said. “She seems to have ways of making gentlemen feel indebted to her—Mr. Lanaudiere for one, and my brother for another.”

“Now you’re bitter,” she said. “I ask that you won’t feel bitter—that you’ll forget her political views and think only of her nobility and kindness. You see, she’s too generous to revenge herself on you because you have suspected where her sympathies lie; and you have her to thank for your safety.”

“Ellen,” I said, “I hope you’ll waste no time getting away from people who see no wrong in turning Indians loose on helpless settlements. As for me, I’ll take no favors from her.”

Ellen rolled up her knitting and thrust it in a pocket of her gray dress. “But you would from me?” she whispered.

“Yes,” I said. “I can take anything from you—anything!”

She turned and ran lightly up the path to the tents.

XLIII

FROM the manner in which the seven Sacs and Foxes pulled at the tent flap and peeped through the slits, I feared they might drag the canvas and poles down on us. “For God’s sake,” I told Verrieul, “speak to them! Tell them Doc’s making magic. Say anything that’ll keep ’em quiet! It’s enough to drive a body crazy, the way they peep and pry.”