Mary Ellen turned toward him slowly at length, and so far from seeming serious, her features bore the traces of a smile.  “Do you know,” said she, “I think I heard of a stage-driver—­wasn’t it somewhere out West—­who was taking a school-teacher from the railroad to the schoolhouse—­and he—­well, that is to say—­”

“He said things—­”

“Yes, that is it.  He said things, you know.  Now, he had never seen the school-teacher before.”

“Yes, I have heard of that story,” said Franklin, smiling as he recalled the somewhat different story of Sam and the waiter girl.  “I don’t just recollect all about it.”

“It seems to me that the stage-driver said something—­er, like—­maybe he said it was ‘like forgotten music’ to him.”

Franklin coloured.  “The story was an absurdity, like many others about the West,” he said.  “But,” he brightened, “the stage-driver had never seen the school-teacher before.”

“I don’t quite understand,” said Mary Ellen coldly.  “In my country it was not customary for gentlemen to tell ladies when they met for the first time that it was ’like a strain of forgotten music’—­not the first time.”  And in spite of herself she now laughed freely, feeling her feminine advantage and somewhat exulting in spite of herself to see that even here upon the frontier there was opportunity for the employment of woman’s ancient craft.

“Music never forgotten, then!” said Franklin impetuously.  “This is at least not the first time we have met.”  In any ordinary duel of small talk this had not been so bad an attack, yet now the results were something which neither could have foreseen.  To the mind of the girl the words were shocking, rude, brutal.  They brought up again the whole scene of the battlefield.  They recalled a music which was indeed not forgotten—­the music of that procession which walked across the heart of Louisburg on that far-off fatal day.  She shuddered, and upon her face there fell the shadow of an habitual sadness.

“You have spoken of this before, Captain Franklin,” said she, “and if what you say is true, and if indeed you did see me—­there—­at that place—­I can see no significance in that, except the lesson that the world is a very small one.  I have no recollection of meeting you.  But, Captain Franklin, had we ever really met, and if you really cared to bring up some pleasant thought about the meeting, you surely would never recall the fact that you met me upon that day!”

Franklin felt his heart stop.  He looked aside, his face paling as the even tones went on: 

“That was the day of all my life the saddest, the most terrible.  I have been trying ever since then to forget it.  I dare not think of it.  It was the day when—­when my life ended—­when I lost everything, everything on earth I had.”

Franklin turned in mute protest, but she continued: 

“Because of that day,” said she bitterly, “to which you referred as though it were a curious or pleasant thought, since you say you were there at that time—­because of that very day I was left adrift in the world, every hope and every comfort gone.  Because of Louisburg—­why, this—­Ellisville!  This is the result of that day!  And you refer to it with eagerness.”