Lady De La Ware did not know that Pocahontas believed Smith dead, and Pocahontas, not imagining anything else, thought Smith must have written this letter from Jamestown before he died; and her heart grew warm thinking how, even dying, he had done what he could for her happiness on the mere chance of her going to England.  The truth of the matter was that Smith was then at Plymouth, making ready to start on an expedition to New England; and though he did not expect to see Pocahontas, he wished England, and first of all England’s Queen, to know what they owed this Indian girl.

It happened not long after that “La Belle Sauvage,” as the Londoners sometimes called Pocahontas, and Rolfe were being entertained at a fair country seat.  An English girl, much of the age of her guest, whose curiosity about the ways of the Indians was restrained only by her courtesy, had been showing her through the beautiful old garden.  They had talked of Virginia, and Mistress Alicia coaxed: 

“Wilt thou not take me with thee.  Lady Rebecca, when thou returnest thither?

“But see,” and she peered through an opening in the high yew hedge, “yonder cometh Master Rolfe with a party of gentlemen.  Oh! one of them is a brave figure of a man, though he weareth not such fine clothes as some of the others.  By my troth! ’tis Captain John Smith, and of course he cometh to greet thee.  I would I might stay to hear what ye two old friends have to say to each other.”

It seemed to Pocahontas that hours elapsed during the few minutes she was alone after Mistress Alicia left her, while her husband was guiding her guests to her through the garden’s winding mazes.  How could Smith be alive when she knew that he was dead?  Even as she caught in the distance the sound of his voice, she asked herself if in truth she had ever heard of his death from anyone but the councillors in Jamestown.

The well-known voice was no longer weak as when she had last heard it bid her farewell.  There they were, the gentlemen all bowing to her but remaining in the background, while Rolfe came forward with Smith.

“I have brought thee an old friend, Rebecca,” he said.

Pocahontas saluted him, but words were impossible.

John Smith afterwards wrote concerning this interview: 

“After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about, obscured her face, as not seeming well contented, and in that humor her husband with divers others, we all left her two or three hours.”

Seeing that she preferred to be alone, the men departed to talk over the affairs of the Virginia Colony since Smith had left Jamestown.  Pocahontas, sitting quietly on a garden bench near the carp pond, went over in her thought all that had taken place in her own life since then.

Then she saw him coming towards her again, alone, and she stretched out her hand to him.

“My father,” she cried, “dost thou remember the old days in Wingandacoa when thou earnest first to Werowocomoco and wert my prisoner?”