ht not have been his
mistress after all, but his wife. Yes, I dared hope that he had lied,
remembering what Mount and the Weasel told me. At any rate, I had long
since determined to search what parish records might remain undestroyed
in a land where destruction had reigned for four terrible years. That,
and the chance that I might slay him if he appeared as he had
threatened, were the two fixed ideas that persisted. There was little
certainty, however, in either case, for, as I say, the records, if
extant, might only confirm his pledged word, and, on the other hand, I
was engaged by all laws of honor not to permit a private enmity to
swerve me from my public duty. Therefore, I could neither abandon all
else to hunt him down if he appeared as he promised to appear, nor take
time in record-searching, unless the documents were close at hand.

Perplexed, more than anxious, I went up-stairs and entered my chamber.
The door between our rooms still swung open, and, as I stepped forward
to close it, I saw Elsin there, asleep on her bed, fingers doubled up
in her rosy palms. So young, so pitifully alone she seemed, lying there
sleep-flushed, face upturned, that my eyes dimmed as I gazed. Bitter
doubts assailed me. I knew that I should have asked a flag and sent her
north to Sir Frederick Haldimand--even though it meant a final
separation for us--rather than risk the chances of my living through
the armed encounter, the intrigues, the violence which were so surely
approaching. I could do so still; it was not too late. Colonel Willett
would give me a flag!

Miserable, undecided, overwhelmed with self-reproach, I stood there
looking upon the unconscious sleeper. Sunlight faded from the patterned
wall; that violet tint, which lingers with us in the north after the
sun has set, deepened to a sadder color, then slowly thickened to
obscurity; and from the window I saw the new moon hanging through
tangled branches, dull as a silver-poplar leaf in November.

What if I die here on the frontier? The question persisted, repeating
itself again and again. And my thoughts ran on in somber disorder: If I
die--then we shall never know wedded happiness--never know the sweetest
of intimacies. Our lives, uncompleted, what meaning is there in such
lives? As for me, were my life to end all incomplete, why was I born?
To live on, year after year, escaping the perils all are heir to, and
then, when for the first instant life's true meaning is disclos