The French girl?  Could it be possible that he meant Toinette?  I was conscious of a strange fluttering of the heart, as I stepped forth upon the narrow footway and peered along it, searching for her.  I could distinguish nothing, however; and as I slowly felt my way forward, testing the squared log beneath me with careful foot and keeping hold with one hand upon the sharpened palisades, I began to believe the corporal had been mistaken.  The door, closing behind, shut off the last gleam of light, and I was left alone in utter darkness and silence, save for the low rumble of voices within the Fort enclosure, and the soft plashing below where the river current kissed the bank at the foot of the stockade.

I had gone almost the full length of that side, before I came where she was leaning against the logs, her chin resting upon one hand, her gaze turned northward.  Indeed, so silent was she, so intent upon her own thought, I might have touched her unnoticed in the gloom, had not the stars broken through a rift in the cloud above us, and sent a sudden gleam of silver across her face.

“Mademoiselle,” I said, striving to address her with something of the ease I thought De Croix would exercise at such a moment, “I meant not to intrude upon your privacy, yet I am most glad to meet with you once more.”

She started slightly, as though aroused from reverie, and glanced inquiringly toward me.

“I supposed my visitor to be one of the guard,” she said pleasantly; “and even now I am unable to distinguish your face, yet the sound of the voice reminds me of John Wayland.”

“I am proud to know that it has not already been forgotten.  You deserted me so suddenly this afternoon, I almost doubted my being welcome now.”

She laughed lightly, tapping the ends of the logs with her finger-tips.

“Have you, then, never learned that a woman is full of whims, Monsieur?” she questioned.  “Why, this afternoon your eyes were so big with wonder that they had forgotten to look at me.  Truly, I spoke to you twice to aid me from the saddle; but you heard nothing, and in my desperation I was obliged to turn to the courtesy of Captain de Croix.  Ah, there is a soldier, my friend, who is never so preoccupied as to neglect his duty to a lady.”

“It was indeed most ungallant of me,” I stammered, scarce knowing whether she laughed at me or not.  “Yet my surroundings were all new, and I have the training of De Croix in such matters.”

“Pah! ’t is just as well.  I am inclined to like you as you are, my friend, and we shall not quarrel; yet, with all his love for lesser things, your comrade has always shown himself a truly gallant gentleman.”

I made no answer to these flattering words, for I felt them to be true; yet no less this open praise of him, falling from her lips, racked me sorely, and I lacked the art to make light of it.

“The soldiers in the block-house tell me you come here often,” I ventured at last, for the dead silence weighed upon me.  “You have never seemed to me like one who would seek such loneliness.”