“You are leaving the house, monsieur?”

“I find I am obliged to make a short journey.”

“I have made a long one, monsieur.  It may be best to tell you that I come charged with a message for you.”

I thought of Madame d’Angouleme.  The sister who had been mine for a few minutes, and from whom this priest had cast me out, declaring that God had smitten the pretender when my eclipse laid me at his feet—­remembered me in her second exile, perhaps believed in me still.  Women put wonderful restraints upon themselves.

Abbe Edgeworth and I looked steadily at each other.

“I hope Madame d’Angouleme is well?”

“She is well, and is still the comforter of his Majesty’s misfortune.”

“Monsieur the Abbe, a message would need to be very urgent to be listened to to-night.  I will give you audience in the morning, or when I return.”

We both bowed again.  I took Pierre Grignon into the hall for counsel.

In the end he rode with me, for we concluded to send Skenedonk with a party along the east shore.

Though searching for the lost is an experience old as the world, its poignancy was new to me.  I saw Eagle tangled in the wild oats of the river.  I saw her treacherously dealt with by Indians who called themselves at peace.  I saw her wandering out and out, mile beyond mile, to undwelt-in places, and the tender mercy of wolves.

We crossed the ferry and took to the trail, Pierre Grignon talking cheerfully.

“Nothing has happened to her, M’s’r Williams,” he insisted.  “No Indian about La Baye would hurt her, and the child is not so crazy as to hurt herself.”

It was a starless night, muffled overhead as the day had been, but without rain or mist.  He had a lantern hanging at his saddle bow, ready to light.  In the open lands we rode side by side, but through growths along the Fox first one and then the other led the way.

We found my door unfastened.  I remembered for the first time I had not locked it.  Some one had been in the house.  A low fire burned in the chimney.  We stirred it and lighted the lantern.  Footprints not our own had dried white upon the smooth dark floor.

They pointed to the fireplace and out again.  They had been made by a woman’s feet.

We descended the hill to the river, and tossed our light through every bush, the lantern blinking in the wind.  We explored the ravine, the light stealing over white birches that glistened like alabaster.  It was no use to call her name.  She might be hidden behind a rock laughing at us.  We had to surprise her to recover her.  Skenedonk would have traced her where we lost the trail.

When we went back to the house, dejected with physical weariness, I unstrapped the blanket and the food which Madame Ursule had sent, and brought them to Pierre Grignon.  He threw the blanket on the settee, laid out bread and meat on the table, and ate, both of us blaming ourselves for sending the Indian on the other side of the river.