Even among the Indians I was not
tempted to--to that."
"You would have died. Starved here in the wilderness, if I had not
found you."
"Perhaps, monsieur. Yet I gave myself what chance I could. I took
some food, a fishing line, and that knife."
"Why did you leave me?"
"Monsieur!"
"I say, why did you leave me?"
"Monsieur, what else could I do? I would have discredited you. Those
were your words. 'A woman would discredit our canoes.'"
"Yet you were--you were a woman all the time."
"Not in your eyes, monsieur."
I gripped her hand. "Did the Indians suspect?"
"Never for a moment."
"Yet when they captured you"--
"I was in man's dress. I--I was trying to defend the blockhouse. The
men had--had--had"--
I seized her in my arm, and made her drink from my brandy flask. In a
moment the color came back to her lips, and she drew away.
"I have never done this before," she explained unsteadily. "Never
since my capture. I suppose it is because--because you know. And so I
cannot play the man. Monsieur, believe me. I would never have come
with you, never, if I had not felt sure of myself. Sure that I could
play my part, and that you would not know. I--I--tried, a little, to
make you understand there at the commandant's, and when I saw that you
were really blind I thought that I was safe.
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