The canoe ran among the reeds, with its bow to the shore. Philip's
astonishment still held him motionless.
"A little while ago you asked me if I would tell you anything
but--but--the truth," he stammered, trying to find words to express
himself, "and this--"
"Is the truth," interrupted Jeanne, a little coolly. "Why should I tell
you an untruth, M'sieur?"
Philip had asked himself that same question shortly after their first
meeting on the cliff. And now in the girl's question there was sounded
a warning for him to be more discreet.
"I did not mean that," he cried, quickly. "Please forgive me. Only--it
is so wonderful, so almost IMPOSSIBLE to believe. Do you know what I
thought of for three-quarters of the night after I left you and Pierre
on the rock? It was of years--centuries ago. I put you and Pierre back
there. It seemed as though you had come to me from out of another
world, that you had strayed from the chivalry and beauty of some royal
court, that a queen's painter might have known and made a picture of
you, as I saw you there, but that to me you were only the vision of a
dream. And now you say that you have always lived here!"
He saw Jeanne's eyes glowing. She had lifted herself from among the
bearskins and was leaning toward him. Her face was quivering with
emotion; her whole being seemed concentrated on his words.
"M'sieur--Philip--did we seem--like that?" she asked, tremulously.
"Yes, or I would not have written the letter," replied Philip. He
leaned forward over the pack, and his face was close to Jeanne's. "I
had just passed over the place where men and women of a century or two
ago were buried, and when I saw you and Pierre I thought of them; of
Mademoiselle D'Arcon, who left a prince to follow her lover to a grave
back there at Churchill, and I wondered if Grosellier--"
"Grosellier!" cried the girl.
She was breathing quickly, excitedly. Suddenly she drew back with a
little, nervous laugh.
"I am glad you thought of us like THAT," she added. "It was Grosellier,
le grand chevalier, who first lived at Fort o' God!"
Philip could no longer restrain himself. He forgot that the canoe was
lying motionless among the reeds and that they were to go ashore. In a
voice that trembled with his eagerness to be understood, to win her
confidence, he told her fully of what had happened that night on the
cliff. He repeated Pierre's instructions to him, described his terrible
fear for her, and in it all withheld but one thing--the name of Lord
Fitzhugh Lee. Jeanne listened to him without a word. She sat as erect
as one of the slender reeds among which the canoe was hidden. Her dark
eyes never left his face. They seemed to have grown darker when he
finished.
"May the great God reward you for what you have done," she said, in a
low voice, quivering with a suppressed passion. "You are brave, M'sieur
Philip--as brave as I have dreamed of men being."
Philip's heart throbbed with delight, and yet he said quickly:
"It isn't THAT. I have done nothing--nothing more than Pierre would
have done for me. But don't you understand? If there is to be a reward
for the little I have given--I could ask for nothing greater than your
confidence and Pierre's. There are reasons, and perhaps if I told you
those you would understand."
"I do understand, without further explanation," answered Jeanne, in the
same low, strained voice. "You fought for Pierre on the cliff, and you
have saved--me. We owe you everything, even our lives. I understand,
M'sieur Philip," she said, more softly, leaning still nearer to him;
"but I can tell you nothing."
"You prefer to leave that to Pierre," he said a little hurt. "I beg
your pardon."
"No, no! I don't mean that!" she cried, quickly. "You misunderstand me.
I mean that you know as much of this whole affair as I do, that you
know what I know, and perhaps more."
The emotion which she had suppressed burst forth now in a choking sob.
She recovered herself in an instant, her eyes still upon Philip.
"It was only a whim of mine that took us to Churchill," she went on,
before he could find words to say. "It is Pierre's secret why we lived
in our own camp and went down into Churchill but once--when the ship
came in. I do not know the reason for the attack. I can only guess--"
"And your guess--"
Jeanne drew back. For a moment she did not speak. Then she said,
without a note of harshness in her voice, but with the finality of a
queen:
"Father may tell you that when we reach Fort o' God!"
And then she suddenly leaned toward him again and held out both her
hands.
"If you only could know how I thank you!" she exclaimed, impulsively.
For a moment Philip held her hands. He felt them trembling. In Jeanne's
eyes he saw the glisten of tears.
"Circumstances have come about so strangely," he said, his heart
palpitating at the warm pressure of her fingers, "that I half believed
you and Pierre could help me in--in an affair of my own. I would give a
great deal to find a certain person, and after the attack on the cliff,
and what Pierre said, I thought--"
He hesitated, and Jeanne gently drew her hands from him.
"I thought that you might know him," he finished. "His name is Lord
Fitzhugh Lee."
Jeanne gave no sign that she had heard the name before. The question in
her eyes remained unchanged.
"We have never heard of him at Fort o' God," she said.
Philip shoved the canoe more firmly upon the shore and stepped over the
side.
"This Fort o' God must be a wonderful place," he said, as he bent over
to help her. "You have aroused something in me I never thought I
possessed before--a tremendous curiosity."
"It is a wonderful place, M'sieur Philip," replied the girl, holding up
her hands to him. "But why should you guess it?"
"Because of you," laughed Philip. "I am half convinced that you take a
wicked delight in bewildering me."
He found Jeanne a comfortable spot on the bank, brought her one of the
bearskins, and began collecting a pile of dry reeds and wood.
"I am sure of it," he went on. He struck a match, and the reeds flared
into flame, lighting up his face.
Jeanne gave a startled cry.
"You are hurt!" she exclaimed. "Your face is red with blood."
Philip jumped back.
"I had forgotten that. I'll wash my face."
He waded into the edge of the water and began scrubbing himself. When
he returned, Jeanne looked at him closely. The fire illumined her pale
face. She had gathered her beautiful hair in a thick braid, which fell
over her shoulder. She appeared lovelier to him now than when he had
first seen her in the night-glow on the cliff. She was dressed the
same. He observed that the filmy bit of lace about her slender throat
was torn, and that one side of her short buckskin skirt was covered
with half-dried splashes of mud. His blood rose at these signs of the
rough treatment of those who had attacked her. It reached fever-heat
when, coming nearer, he saw a livid bruise on her forehead close up
under her hair.
"They struck you?" he demanded.
He stood with his hands clenched. She smiled up at him.
"It was my fault," she explained. "I'm afraid I gave them a good deal
of trouble on the cliff."
She laughed outright at the fierceness in Philip's face, and so sweet
was the sound of it to him that his hands relaxed and he laughed with
her.
"So help me, you're a brick!" he cried.
"There are pots and kettles and coffee and things to eat in the pack,
M'sieur Philip," reminded Jeanne, softly, as he still remained staring
down upon her.
Philip turned to the canoe, with a laugh that was like a boy's. He
threw the pack at Jeanne's feet and unstrapped it. Together they sorted
out the things they wanted, and Philip cut crotched sticks on which he
suspended two pots of water over the fire. He found himself whistling
as he gathered an armful of wood along the shore. When he came back
Jeanne had opened a bottle of olives and was nibbling at one, while she
held out another to him on the end of a fork.
"I love olives," she said. "Won't you have one?"
He accepted the thing, and ate it joyously, though he hated olives.
"Where did you acquire the taste?" he asked. "I thought it took a
course at college to make one like 'em."
"I've been to college," answered Jeanne, quietly. There was a glow in
her cheeks now, a swift flash of tantalizing fun in her eyes, as she
fished after another olive. "I have been a student--a TENERIS ANNIS,"
she added, and he stood stupefied.
"That's Latin!" he gasped.
"Oui, M'sieur. Wollen Sie noch eine Olive haben?"
Laughter rippled in her throat. She held out another olive to him, her
face aglow. Firelight danced in her hair, flooding its darker shadows
with lights of red and gold.
"I was sure of it," he exclaimed, convinced. "That's post-graduate
Latin and senior German, or I'm as mad as a March hare! Where--where
did you go to school?"
"At Fort o' God. Quick, M'sieur Philip, the water is boiling over!"
Philip sprang to the fire. Jeanne handed him coffee, and set out cold
meat and bread. For the first time that night he pulled out his pipe
and filled it with tobacco.
"You don't mind if I smoke, do you, Miss Jeanne?" he groaned. "Under
some circumstances tobacco is the only thing that will hold me up. Do
you know that you are shaking my confidence in you?"
"I have told you nothing but the truth," retorted Jeanne, innocently.
She was still busying herself over the pack, but Philip caught the
slightest gleam of her laughing teeth.
"You are making fun of me," he remonstrated. "Tell me--where is this
Fort o' God, and what is it?"
"It is far up the Churchill, M'sieur Philip. It is a log chateau, built
hundreds and hundreds of years ago, I guess. My father, Pierre, and I,
with one other, live there alone among the savages. I have never been
so far away from home before."
"I suppose," said Philip, "that the savages up your way converse in
Latin, Greek, and German--"
"Latin, FRENCH, and German," corrected Jeanne. "We haven't added a
Greek course yet."
"I know of a girl," mused Philip, as though speaking to himself, "who
spent five years in a girls' college, and she can talk nothing but
light English. Her name is Eileen Brokaw."
Jeanne looked up, but only to point to the coffee.
"It is done," she advised, "unless you like it bitter."