She stopped, her agitated face buried in her hands, and neither of us spoke.  The solemnity of her words and manner were most impressive.

“You feel, then, that the die is cast?” asked De Croix, all lightness vanished from his voice.

“I believe we march forth from these walls to our death to-morrow.”

“But why,” I protested, “should you, at least, take part in such hazard?  Your father’s family, you tell us, will be safe from attack.  Surely, that home might also prove your refuge?”

The little woman, with the face of a girl, looked up at me indignantly through her tears.

“Lieutenant Helm marches with the troops,” she answered quietly, “and I am his wife.”

I retain no memory, at this late day, of what conversation followed.  I know that De Croix in his easy carelessness about the future, sought to laugh at her fears and restore a feeling of hopefulness; but all my thoughts were elsewhere,—­upon the grave dilemma in which we found ourselves, and my duty to these helpless ones upon every side.

I must have left the two standing there and conversing, though just how I moved, and why, is dim to me.  I recall crossing the bare parade, and noting the company that formed the little garrison drawn up in the shadow of the south stockade.  At any other time I should have paused in interest, for military evolutions always attracted my attention; but then I had no sense other than that of mental and physical exhaustion from the hours of toil and lack of rest.  Owing to my absence the night before, no quarters had been assigned me; but finding the barracks of the troops unoccupied, and yielding to imperative need, I flung myself, without undressing, upon a vacant bunk, and lay there tossing with the burden of intense fatigue.

And then how the thoughts I sought to banish thronged upon me!  No effort of my will could shut them out.  I went over again and again the quarrel with De Croix, the incidents of the night, the solemn words of Mrs. Helm.  Little by little, each detail clear and absolute, there unrolled before my mind’s view the picture of our situation.  I saw it as a frontiersman must, in all its grim probabilities.  The little isolated Fort was cut off from all communication, held by a weakened garrison.  Hope of rescue there was none.  Without were already gathered hundreds of warriors attracted by rumors of war and promise of pillage; and these were growing in number and increasing in ferocity each day.  I had ridden through them once, when their mood was only to annoy, and realized with a shudder of horror what it would mean to face them in our retreat, with all restraint of their chiefs removed.  I thought of those long leagues of tangled forest-land stretching between us and the nearest border settlements, of ambuscades, of constant and harassing attack on the ever-thinning column as we fought for each foot of the way.  Once my mind dwelt for an instant upon the quiet home I had left on the banks of the Maumee; as my eyes filled at the memory I drove it from me, for the present necessity was all too stern to permit indulgence in such weakness.