done the wrong thing. There are some of us, Mademoiselle, who have no
home, no ties of family, no love, except for the work in which we are
slowly building up a good name and a firm place. That is what I was.
Do you know what it is that makes up the life of such a man? It is the
little things, the acts of every day and every week; and they must be
honest and loyal, or he will fail. I might have stayed in Paris, I
might even have found a place in Quebec where I could wear a bright
uniform, and be close in the Governor's favour. I chose the other
course. I have given a dozen years to the harder work, only to fall
within the week from all that I had hoped,--had thought myself to be.
And now, as I speak to you, I know that I have lost; that if you
should smile at me, should put your hand in mine, everything that I
have been working for would be nothing to me. You would be the only
thing in the world."

She sat motionless. He did not go on, and yet each moment seemed to
bring them closer in understanding. After a little while she said
huskily:--

"You cared--you cared like that?"

She was not looking toward him, and she could not see him slowly bow
his head; but there was an answer in his silence.

"You cared--when you made the speech--"

"Yes."

She looked at the stalwart, bowed figure. She was beginning to
understand what he had done, that in his pledge to the chiefs he had
triumphed over a love greater than she had supposed a man could bear
for a woman.

"A soldier cannot always choose his way," he was saying. "I have never
chosen mine. It was the orders of my superior that brought us here,
that brought this suffering to you. If it were not for these orders,
the Onondagas would be my friends, and because of that, your friends.
It has always been like this; I have built up that others might tear
down. I thought for a few hours that something else was to come to me.
I should have known better. It was when you took the daisy--" she
raised her hand and touched the withered flower. "I did not reason. I
knew I was breaking my trust, and I did not care. After all, perhaps
even that was the best thing. It gave me strength and hope to carry on
the fight. It was you, then,--not New France. Now the dream is over,
and again it is New France. It must be that."

"Yes," she said, "it must be."

"I have had wild thoughts. I have meant to ask you to let me hope,
once this is over and you safe at Frontenac. I could not believe