Dubisson is near your size."
And so I let him lead me away. I pressed him for news of the Indian
situation, but he only shrugged and said, "Wait. Matters are quiescent
enough on the surface. We will talk later."
It was strange. I bathed and dressed quite as I had done many times
before, when I had come in from months in camp; quite as if there were
no woman, and as if massacre were not knocking at the window. But I
carried a black weight that made my tongue leaden, and I excused myself
from table on the plea of going through my mail.
The news the letters brought was good but unimportant. In the Montreal
packet was a sealed line in a woman's hand.
"I have tracked my miniature," it read. "I mourned its disappearance;
I should welcome its return. Can you find excuses for the man who took
it from me? If you can, I beg that you let me hear them. He was once
my friend, and I am loath to think of him hardly." The note bore no
signature. It was dated at the governor's house at Montreal, and
directed to me at Michillimackinac.
I was alone with Dubisson and I turned to him. "Madame Bertheau is at
Montreal?"
He shrugged. "So I hear."
"She has come to see her brother?"
Now he grinned.
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