“I must go get on dry clothes myself,” said Betty.  “I am nearly frozen.  It is growing colder.  I saw Jack come in.  Is he going to Fort Pitt?”

“No.  He has decided to wait until good weather.  I met Mr. Miller over at the garrison this afternoon and he wants you to go on the sled-ride to-night.  There is to be a dance down at Watkins’ place.  All the young people are going.  It is a long ride, but I guess it will be perfectly safe.  Silas and Wetzel are going.  Dress yourself warmly and go with them.  You have never seen old Grandma Watkins.”

“I shall be pleased to go,” said Betty.

Betty’s room was very cozy, considering that it was in a pioneer’s cabin.  It had two windows, the larger of which opened on the side toward the river.  The walls had been smoothly plastered and covered with white birch-bark.  They were adorned with a few pictures and Indian ornaments.  A bright homespun carpet covered the floor.  A small bookcase stood in the corner.  The other furniture consisted of two chairs, a small table, a bureau with a mirror, and a large wardrobe.  It was in this last that Betty kept the gowns which she had brought from Philadelphia, and which were the wonder of all the girls in the village.

“I wonder why Eb looked so closely at me,” mused Betty, as she slipped on her little moccasins.  “Usually he is not anxious to have me go so far from the fort; and now he seemed to think I would enjoy this dance to-night.  I wonder what Bessie has been telling him.”

Betty threw some wood on the smouldering fire in the little stone grate and sat down to think.  Like every one who has a humiliating secret, Betty was eternally suspicious and feared the very walls would guess it.  Swift as light came the thought that her brother and his wife had suspected her secret and had been talking about her, perhaps pitying her.  With this thought came the fear that if she had betrayed herself to the Colonel’s wife she might have done so to others.  The consciousness that this might well be true and that even now the girls might be talking and laughing at her caused her exceeding shame and bitterness.

Many weeks had passed since that last night that Betty and Alfred Clarke had been together.

In due time Col.  Zane’s men returned and Betty learned from Jonathan that Alfred had left them at Ft.  Pitt, saying he was going south to his old home.  At first she had expected some word from Alfred, a letter, or if not that, surely an apology for his conduct on that last evening they had been together.  But Jonathan brought her no word, and after hoping against hope and wearing away the long days looking for a letter that never came, she ceased to hope and plunged into despair.