Doc’s aversion to these attentions was such that he stuffed his bundles into his smock, gathered up all his clothes, and set off naked for the tent, walking with that wavering, staggering shamble of his. His seven red friends hurried along beside him, regarding him with delight. With them went one of the sentries.

As we hurried into our own poor garments, Verrieul shook his head. “I’m disturbed because they stay here, instead of setting off to the southward with the canoe fleet. When an Indian wants something, he is the most persistent of mortals, and I think it would be well if you saw your friend, Lanaudiere, and asked him to hide Doc from them, before they quarrel over him.”

I, too, wanted to get to Lanaudiere promptly: not only to ensure Doc’s safety, but to learn what had happened to Nathaniel; so I urged Verrieul to ask a sentry where we could find Lanaudiere.

He spoke to one of the French Canadians, who ignored him. He tried again and again, but those sullen, swarthy-faced guards of ours never opened their mouths. Their eyes were blank, like those of a dead cod.

“You can see,” Verrieul said uneasily, “they’ve been ordered not to speak to us.”

My own uneasiness returned a hundredfold. How many times Mr. Leonard, during our short acquaintance, must have deceived us and lied to us! Hand in glove, he had been, with Marie de Sabrevois.

“We’ll go to the tent,” I told Verrieul, pretending a confidence I was far from feeling. “I’ve got to find out about Marie and Ellen Phipps. There must be some way of getting word to Lanaudiere.”

At the tent, Doc was safely under cover. He had tied the flap, and his Indian friends were crowded around the entrance, peeping through the openings.

The voice of Marie de Sabrevois, the night before, had reminded me poignantly of Ellen; and today, for some strange reason, I found the thought of her almost an obsession. The sound of the wind in the leaves, the whispering of the waves of the lake, were surprisingly reminiscent of her voice. The gray of the beech trees was exactly like the gray of the convent dress in which I had first beheld her. I had a singular feeling that she might be near me: twice I looked over my shoulder, I knew not why.

I imagined that I saw a fold of her gray dress protruding from behind one of those gray beech trees. It wasn’t, of course: it was only a shadow on the trunk: a ridge on the bark. I knew it couldn’t possibly be a dress: yet I couldn’t take my eyes from the tree that had played such a trick upon me.

As I watched it, the gray shadow swayed a little. I ran forward, half choked by the pounding of my heart.