To my inexpressible joy it was Ellen! She was waiting behind the tree, her head bent above knitting needles that flashed in and out of gray wool.

We just looked at each other. There was an intent, strained look in her eyes, such as I have seen in the eyes of dumb persons.

One of the sentries, pulling at my arm, gabbled French. Ellen quickly moved between the sentry and me. “Go slowly to the tent,” she told Verrieul. “Then one of these men will have to go with you. The two who remain can’t stop me from talking, and won’t be able to decide what to do.”

She widened her eyes at me, a way of hers that never failed to make my heart skip a beat. “It is disobedient, this that I do, but it was necessary that I should speak with you.”

She was silent again, and again we just looked at each other. Truth to tell, I could not stare enough; for although her brown curls, her brown eyes, her pointed chin had remained in my brain as though etched within it, the image was a pale thing beside the warm and glowing reality.

One of our guards jabbered furiously. Verrieul had gone; and with him, as Ellen had predicted, had gone the third sentry.

Ellen turned on the jabberer. She stamped her foot: stamped it twice, ordering him to be silent. He quailed visibly before her indignation.

She turned her back on the sentries and spoke rapidly to me. “Last night, when Monsieur Lanaudiere brought your brother to my aunt’s tent, I knew you were here. I wished then to see you, knowing your feelings for your brother; but Monsieur Lanaudiere forbade.”

“He’s your aunt’s uncle?”

“No. He’s one of the commanders of the Indians—he and Monsieur Langlade and Monsieur Campbell. He was General Carleton’s aide in Quebec last winter; but when his father-in-law, Monsieur de St. Luc, was captured by General Montgomery and put in prison, Monsieur Lanaudiere was so angry that he took his father-in-law’s place as a leader of Indians.”

“I met him in England,” I said. “I must tell you this. He was with your aunt. She called him her uncle.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes. Now I must tell you something, too. You were right about my aunt. She is what you said she was.”

When I would have spoken, she stopped me. “Wait! I must tell you how kind she is. In spite of everything, she is kind. I wish you to realize her great kindness, so that you will understand why it is that I have loved her so much.”

“She used you,” I said. “You loved and trusted her, and she took advantage of you. She used you to send messages to Albany. She used you to stab innocent people in the back.”