light
smile was visible in the dark eyes fronting me.

"Why hid you from me with such care the object of your search?"

"I hid nothing, Mademoiselle. We spoke together about it often."

"Ay, indeed you told me you sought a young girl, and your words led me
to think at first it must be Josette, and later still the Indian
missionary. But not once did you breathe the name of the girl in my
ears. The dwellers at Dearborn were neither so many nor so strange to
me that I could not have aided you in your search."

"You knew this Elsa Matherson?"

"I am not so sure of that, Master Wayland." she returned gravely, her
eyes wandering into the night. "Once I thought I did, but she has
changed so greatly in the last few days that I am hardly sure. A young
girl's life is often filled with mystery, and there are happenings that
turn girlhood to womanhood in a single hour. Love has power to change
the nature as by magic, and sorrow also has a like rare gift. Do you
still greatly wish to find this Elsa Matherson?"

"To find her?" and I gazed about me incredulously into those flitting
shadows where the waves raced by. "Ay, for I have dreamed of her as of
a lost sister, and it will sadly grieve those at home to have me return
thus empty-handed. Yet the thought is foolishness, Mademoiselle, and I
understand not why you should mock me so."

She drew closer, in the gentle caressing way she had, and found my
disengaged hand, her sweet face held upward so that I could mark every
changing expression.

"Never in my useless life was I farther removed from any spirit of
mockery," she insisted, soberly; "for never before have I seen the
presence of God so clearly manifest in His mysterious guidance of men.
You, who sought after poor Elsa Matherson in this wilderness, looking
perchance for a helpless orphan child, have been led to pluck me in
safety out from savage hands, and yet never once dreamed that in doing
so you only fulfilled your earlier mission."

I stared at her, grasping with difficulty the full significance of her
speech.

"Your words puzzle me."

"Nay, they need not," and I caught the sudden glitter of tears on her
lashes; "for I am Elsa Matherson."

"You? you?" and I crushed her soft hand within my fingers, as I peered
forward at the quickly lowered face. "Why, you are French,
Mademoiselle, and of a different name!"

She glanced up now into my puzzled face, a bit shyly, yet with some of
the old roguishness v