“Tell you what?  Tell you why I loiter by our soldiers’ camps like any painted drab?  I will tell you this much; I need no longer play that shameless role.”

“You need not use those words in the same breath when speaking of yourself,” I answered hotly.

“Then—­ you do not credit ill of me?” she asked, a bright but somewhat fixed and painful smile on her red lips.

“No!” said I bluntly.  “Nor did I ever.”

“And yet I look the part, and seem to play it, too.  And still you believe me honest?”

“I know you are.”

“Then why should I be here alone—­ if I am honest, Euan?”

“I do not know; tell me.”

“But—­ are you quite certain that you do not ask because you doubt me?”

I said impatiently:  “I ask, knowing already you are good above reproach.  I ask so I may understand how best to aid you.”

A lovely colour stole into her cheeks.

“You are kind, Euan.  And it is true—­ though—­ " and she shrugged her shoulders, “what other man would credit it?” She lifted her head a little and looked at me with clear, proud eyes: 

“Well, let them say what they may in fort and barracks twixt this frontier and Philadelphia.  The truth remains that I have been no man’s mistress and am no trull.  Euan, I have starved that I might remain exactly what I am at this moment.  I swear to you that I stand here unsullied and unstained under this untainted sky which the same God made who fashioned me.  I have known shame and grief and terror; I have lain cold and ill and sleepless; I have wandered roofless, hunted, threatened, mocked, beset by men and vice.  Soldiers have used me roughly—­ you yourself saw, there at the Poundridge barracks!  And only you among all men saw truly.  Why should I not give to you my friendship, unashamed?”

“Give it,” I said, more deeply moved than ever I had been.

“I do!  I do!  Rightly or wrongly, now, at last, and in the end, I give my honest heart and friendship to a man!” And with a quick and winning gesture she offered me her hand; and I took it firmly in my clasp, and fell a-trembling so I could not find a word to utter.

“Come to me to-night, Euan,” she said.  “I lodge yonder.  There is a poor widow there—­ a Mrs. Rannock—­ who took me in.  They killed her husband in November.  I am striving to repay her for the food and shelter she affords me.  I have been given mending and washing at the fort.  You see I am no leech to fasten on a body and nourish me for nothing.  So I do what I am able.  Will you come to me this night?”

“Yes.”  But I could not yet speak steadily.

“Come then; I—­ I will tell you something of my miserable condition—­ if you desire to know....  Truly I think, speaking to no one, this long and unhappy silence has eaten and corroded part of me within—­ so ill am I at moments with the pain and shame I’ve borne so long—­ so long, Euan!  Ah—­ you do not—­ know....  And it may be that when you do come to-night I have repented of my purposes—­ locked up my wounded heart again.  But I shall try to tell you—­ something.  For I need somebody—­ need kindly council very sorely, Euan.  And even the Sagamore now fails me—­ on the threshold——­”