“David,” she said, “could you not tell that I loved you, that you were he who has been in my mind for so many years, and in my heart since I saw you?”

“I could not tell,” I said.  “I dared not think it.  I—­I thought there was another.”

She was seated on the arm of my chair.  She drew back her head with a smile trembling on her lips, with a lustre burning in her eyes like a vigil—­a vigil for me.

“He reminded me of you,” she answered.

I was lost in sheer, bewildering happiness.  And she who created it, who herself was that happiness, roused me from it.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“I was thinking that a star has fallen,—­that I may have a jewel beyond other men,” I said.

“And a star has risen for me,” she said, “that I may have a guide beyond other women.”

“Then it is you who have raised it, Helene.”  I was silent a moment, trying again to bring the matter within my grasp.  “Do you mean that you love me, that you will marry me, that you will come back to Kentucky with me and will be content,—­you, who have been the companion of a Queen?”

There came an archness into her look that inflamed me the more.

“I, who have been the companion of a Queen, love you, will marry you, will go back to Kentucky with you and be content,” she repeated.  “And yet not I, David, but another woman—­a happy woman.  You shall be my refuge, my strength, my guide.  You will lead me over the mountains and through the wilderness by the paths you know.  You will bring me to Polly Ann that I may thank her for the gift of you,—­above all other gifts in the world.”

I was silent again.

“Helene,” I said at last, “will you give me the miniature?”

“On one condition,” she replied.

“Yes,” I said, “yes.  And again yes.  What is it?”

“That you will obey me—­sometimes.”

“It is a privilege I long for,” I answered.

“You did not begin with promise,” she said.

I released her hand, and she drew the ivory from her gown and gave it me. 
I kissed it.

“I will go to Monsieur Isadore’s and get the frame,” I said.

“When I give you permission,” said Helene, gently.

I have written this story for her eyes.

CHAPTER XV

AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A MAN

Out of the blood and ashes of France a Man had arisen who moved real kings and queens on his chess-board—­which was a large part of the world.  The Man was Napoleon Buonaparte, at present, for lack of a better name, First Consul of the French Republic.  The Man’s eye, sweeping the world for a new plaything, had rested upon one which had excited the fancy of lesser adventurers, of one John Law, for instance.  It was a large, unwieldy plaything indeed, and remote.  It was nothing less than that vast and mysterious country which lay beyond the monster yellow River of the Wilderness, the country bordered on the south by the Gulf swamps, on the north by no man knew what forests,—­as dark as those the Romans found in Gaul,—­on the west by a line which other generations might be left to settle.