ent nature?" repeated she, evidently puzzled by my
ambiguous speech; "of what nature, may I ask?" I paused before making
reply.

Whether she had any suspicion of a double meaning to my words, I could
not tell. If so, it was not openly evinced, but most artfully concealed
by the speech that followed. "During my stay among the Utahs," said
she, "I have had an opportunity of seeing wounds of many kinds, and have
observed their mode of treating them. Perhaps I may know how to do
something for those of your comrade? But you say that I _alone_ can
cure them?"

"You, and you only."

"How is that, stranger? I do not understand you!"

"The wounds I speak of are not in the body."

"Where, then?"

"In the heart."

"Oh! stranger, you are speaking in riddles. If your comrade is wounded
in the heart, either by a bullet or an arrow--"

"It is an arrow."

"Then he must die: it will be impossible for any one to save him."

"Not impossible for you. You can extract the arrow--you can save him!"

Mystified by the metaphor, for some moments she remained gazing at me in
silence--her large antelope eyes interrogating me in the midst of her
astonishment. So lovely were those eyes, that had their irides been
blue instead of brown, I might have fancied they were Lilian's! In all
but colour, they looked exactly like hers--as I had once seen them.
Spell-bound by the resemblance, I gazed back into them without
speaking--so earnestly and so long, that she might easily have mistaken
my meaning. Perhaps she did so: for her glance fell; and the circle of
crimson suffusion upon her cheeks seemed slightly to extend its
circumference, at the same time that it turned deeper in hue.

"Pardon me!" said I, "for what may appear unmannerly. I was gazing at a
resemblance."

"A resemblance?"

"Yes! one that recalls the sweetest hour of my life."

"I remind you of some one, then?"

"Ay--truly."

"Some one who has been dear to you?"

"Has been, and _is_."

"Ah! and who, sir, may I have the fortune to resemble?"

"One dear also to you--_your sister_!"

"My sister!"

"Lilian."

CHAPTER EIGHTY THREE.

OLD MEMORIES AWAKENED.

The rein dropped from her fingers--the rifle fell upon the neck of her
horse, and she sat gazing at me in speechless surprise. At length, in a
low murmur, and as if mechanically, she repeated the words:

"My sister Lilian?"

"Yes, Marian Holt--your sister."

"My name! how can you have become