“It isn’t that.  I have done nothing—­nothing more than Pierre would have done for me.  But don’t you understand?  If there is to be a reward for the little I have given—­I could ask for nothing greater than your confidence and Pierre’s.  There are reasons, and perhaps if I told you those you would understand.”

“I do understand, without further explanation,” answered Jeanne, in the same low, strained voice.  “You fought for Pierre on the cliff, and you have saved—­me.  We owe you everything, even our lives.  I understand, M’sieur Philip,” she said, more softly, leaning still nearer to him; “but I can tell you nothing.”

“You prefer to leave that to Pierre,” he said a little hurt.  “I beg your pardon.”

“No, no!  I don’t mean that!” she cried, quickly.  “You misunderstand me.  I mean that you know as much of this whole affair as I do, that you know what I know, and perhaps more.”

The emotion which she had suppressed burst forth now in a choking sob.  She recovered herself in an instant, her eyes still upon Philip.

“It was only a whim of mine that took us to Churchill,” she went on, before he could find words to say.  “It is Pierre’s secret why we lived in our own camp and went down into Churchill but once—­ when the ship came in.  I do not know the reason for the attack.  I can only guess—­”

“And your guess—­”

Jeanne drew back.  For a moment she did not speak.  Then she said, without a note of harshness in her voice, but with the finality of a queen: 

“Father may tell you that when we reach Fort o’ God!”

And then she suddenly leaned toward him again and held out both her hands.

“If you only could know how I thank you!” she exclaimed, impulsively.

For a moment Philip held her hands.  He felt them trembling.  In Jeanne’s eyes he saw the glisten of tears.

“Circumstances have come about so strangely,” he said, his heart palpitating at the warm pressure of her fingers, “that I half believed you and Pierre could help me in—­in an affair of my own.  I would give a great deal to find a certain person, and after the attack on the cliff, and what Pierre said, I thought—­”

He hesitated, and Jeanne gently drew her hands from him.

“I thought that you might know him,” he finished.  “His name is Lord Fitzhugh Lee.”

Jeanne gave no sign that she had heard the name before.  The question in her eyes remained unchanged.

“We have never heard of him at Fort o’ God,” she said.

Philip shoved the canoe more firmly upon the shore and stepped over the side.

“This Fort o’ God must be a wonderful place,” he said, as he bent over to help her.  “You have aroused something in me I never thought I possessed before—­a tremendous curiosity.”

“It is a wonderful place, M’sieur Philip,” replied the girl, holding up her hands to him.  “But why should you guess it?”