“De Croix,” I whispered, “make no alarm; I am Wayland.”

“Wayland!” I could mark the amazement in his tone, as he instantly sat upright, peering through the gloom in the direction whence my voice came. “Mon Dieu!  You are here?  You saw all of it?”

“Ay,” I answered, reaching out and groping in the darkness until I grasped his hand.  “You have had a hard time, my lad; but the worst is over, and hope remains for us both.”

He shuddered so violently I could feel the spasm shake his body.

“’Twas not the dying,” he protested; “but did you see her, Wayland?  Merciful God! was it really a living woman who stood there, or a ghost returned from the other world to haunt me and make living worse than death?”

“You mean the sister who interposed to save you?” I asked.  “She was as truly alive as either of us.  Think you she is not a stranger?”

He groaned, as if the confession was wrung from him by the terror of eternal torment.

“Mon Dieu!  She is my wife!”

“Your wife?”

“Ay, my wife,—­Marie Faneuf, of Montreal.”

“But how comes she here, Monsieur, living in the Pottawattomie camp?  And how comes it that you sought another in this wilderness, if you were already long wedded?”

“Saint Guise! but I cannot tell you,” and his voice shook with the emotion that swept him. “’T is like a black dream, from which I must yet awaken.  She died, I swear she died; the sisters told me so at the convent of the Ursulines, whither she fled to escape my unkindness,—­for I did her wrong; and I stood by the grave as the body they called hers was lowered into the ground.  For all these years have I thought it true; yet the girl yonder was Marie.  But you, Wayland,—­know you aught of her?”

“Only that she guided me hither in search of Mademoiselle.  On the way we conversed, and she let me know that she had dedicated her life to the service of these Indians, seeking to save their souls.”

“’T is like enough; she was ever half a nun, and most religious.  Yet made she no mention of me, and of my crying out at the house?—­for I must indeed have seen her there!”

“She asked me your name, Monsieur, and when I told her she said she recalled it not.  Knew she you by some other?”

He did not answer, though I could mark his heavy breathing, as if he strove with himself for mastery.  Nor did I speak again, eager as I now was to arrange some plan for the future; for this man was certainly in no condition to counsel with.

I know not how long I may have rested there in silence, seeking vainly in my own mind for some opening of escape, or means whereby I might communicate with Mademoiselle.  Would the strange woman forget me now, or would she venture upon a return with her message?  If not, I must grope forward without her, hampered as I should be by this unnerved and helpless Frenchman.  Outside, the noise had almost wholly ceased,—­at least, close to where we were,—­and I could perceive that a slight tinge of returning day was already in the air, faintly revealing the interior of the lodge.