e instantly sat
upright, peering through the gloom in the direction whence my voice
came. "_Mon Dieu_! You are here? You saw all of it?"

"Ay," I answered, reaching out and groping in the darkness until I
grasped his hand. "You have had a hard time, my lad; but the worst is
over, and hope remains for us both."

He shuddered so violently I could feel the spasm shake his body.

"'Twas not the dying," he protested; "but did you see her, Wayland?
Merciful God! was it really a living woman who stood there, or a ghost
returned from the other world to haunt me and make living worse than
death?"

"You mean the sister who interposed to save you?" I asked. "She was as
truly alive as either of us. Think you she is not a stranger?"

He groaned, as if the confession was wrung from him by the terror of
eternal torment.

"_Mon Dieu_! She is my wife!"

"Your wife?"

"Ay, my wife,--Marie Faneuf, of Montreal."

"But how comes she here, Monsieur, living in the Pottawattomie camp?
And how comes it that you sought another in this wilderness, if you
were already long wedded?"

"Saint Guise! but I cannot tell you," and his voice shook with the
emotion that swept him. "'T is like a black dream, from which I must
yet awaken. She died, I swear she died; the sisters told me so at the
convent of the Ursulines, whither she fled to escape my
unkindness,--for I did her wrong; and I stood by the grave as the body
they called hers was lowered into the ground. For all these years have
I thought it true; yet the girl yonder was Marie. But you,
Wayland,--know you aught of her?"

"Only that she guided me hither in search of Mademoiselle. On the way
we conversed, and she let me know that she had dedicated her life to
the service of these Indians, seeking to save their souls."

"'T is like enough; she was ever half a nun, and most religious. Yet
made she no mention of me, and of my crying out at the house?--for I
must indeed have seen her there!"

"She asked me your name, Monsieur, and when I told her she said she
recalled it not. Knew she you by some other?"

He did not answer, though I could mark his heavy breathing, as if he
strove with himself for mastery. Nor did I speak again, eager as I now
was to arrange some plan for the future; for this man was certainly in
no condition to counsel with.

I know not how long I may have rested there in silence, seeking vainly
in my own mind for some opening of escape, or means where