M Y anxious glance wandered from the face I so dearly loved, out where those dark restless waters merged into the brooding mystery of the black night. How unspeakably dreary, lonely, hopeless it all was! Into what tragic unknown fate had this earliest comrade of my manhood been remorselessly swept? Was all indeed well with him? or had the Nemesis of a wrong once done dealt its fatal stroke at last? The voices of the night were silent; the chambers of the great tossing sea hid their secret well. Had this gallant and reckless young soldier of France, this petted courtier of the gayest court in Europe, whose very name and rank I knew not, succeeded in his desperate deed? Had he reached yonder blood-stained shore, lined with infuriated savages, and found safe passage through them to the side of the woman he had once called wife, and then forgotten? Or had he found, ? 379 ? instead, the solemn peace of death amid the swirling waters of this vast inland sea, so many leagues to the westward of that sunny land he loved? These were the thoughts that shook me, as I leaned out above the rail, her dear hand always on my shoulder. Never have the circling years found voice, nor the redeemed wilderness made answer.  
"Possibly it might be done," I admitted slowly. "'Tis scarce farther than I swam just now, and he is neither weary nor wounded."
 
We all realized it was a useless peril to remain there longer, and I sat at the helm and watched, while Burns, who developed considerable knowledge in such matters, fitted the heavy sail in place. With the North Star over the water for our guidance, I headed the blunt nose of the boat due eastward into the untracked waters.
 
I confess that my memory was still lingering upon De Croix, and my eyes turned often enough along our foam-flecked wake in vague wonderment at his fate. It was Mademoiselle who laid hand softly on my knee at last, and aroused my attention to her.
 
"Why did you tell Sister Celeste that you came to Dearborn seeking Elsa Matherson?" she questioned, her clear eyes intently reading my face.
 
"I had even forgotten that I mentioned it," I answered, surprised at this query at such a time. "But it is strictly true. While upon his death-bed Elsa ? 380 ? Matherson's father wrote to mine,—they were old comrades in the great war,—and I was sent hither to bring the orphan girl eastward. I sought her as a brother might seek a sister he had never seen, Mademoiselle; yet have failed most miserably in my mission."
 
"How failed?"
 
"In that I have found no trace of the girl, and beyond doubt she perished in the massacre. I know not how, but I have been strangely baffled and misled from the first in my search for her, and it was all to no purpose."
 
For the first time since I had fallen dripping into the boat, a slight smile was visible in the dark eyes fronting me.
 
"Why hid you from me with such care the object of your search?"
 
"I hid nothing, Mademoiselle. We spoke together about it often."
 
"Ay, indeed you told me you sought a young girl, and your words led me to think at first it must be Josette, and later still the Indian missionary. But not once did you breathe the name of the girl in my ears. The dwellers at Dearborn were neither so many nor so strange to me that I could not have aided you in your search."
 
"You knew this Elsa Matherson?"
 
"I am not so sure of that, Master Wayland," she ? 381 ? returned gravely, her eyes wandering into the night. "Once I thought I did, but she has changed so greatly in the last few days that I am hardly sure. A young girl's life is often filled with mystery, and there are happenings that turn girlhood to womanhood in a single hour. Love has power to change the nature as by magic, and sorrow also has a like rare gift. Do you still greatly wish to find this Elsa Matherson?"
 
"To find her?" and I gazed about me incredulously into those flitting shadows where the waves raced by. "Ay, for I have dreamed of her as of a lost sister, and it will sadly grieve those at home to have me return thus empty-handed. Yet the thought is foolishness, Mademoiselle, and I understand not why you should mock me so."
 
She drew closer, in the gentle caressing way she had, and found my disengaged hand, her sweet face held upward so that I could mark every changing expression.
 
"Never in my useless life was I farther removed from any spirit of mockery," she insisted, soberly; "for never before have I seen the presence of God so clearly manifest in His mysterious guidance of men. You, who sought after poor Elsa Matherson in this wilderness, looking perchance for a helpless orphan child, have been led to pluck me in safety out from savage hands, and yet never once dreamed that in doing so you only fulfilled your earlier mission." ? 382 ? I stared at her, grasping with difficulty the full significance of her speech.
 
"Your words puzzle me."
 
"Nay, they need not," and I caught the sudden glitter of tears on her lashes; "for I am Elsa Matherson."
 
"You? you?" and I crushed her soft hand within my fingers, as I peered forward at the quickly lowered face. "Why, you are French, Mademoiselle, and of a different name!"
 
She glanced up now into my puzzled face, a bit shyly, yet with some of the old roguishness visible in her eyes.
 
"My mother was indeed French, but my father was an American soldier," she said rapidly, as if eager to have the explanation ended. "You never asked my name, save that one night when we first met amid the sand, and then I gave you only that by which I have been most widely known. None except my father ever called me Elsa; to all others I was always Toinette. But I am Roger Matherson's only child."
 
It was clear enough now, and the deception had been entirely my own, rendered possible by strange chances of omission, by rare negligence of speech—aided by my earlier impression that she whom I sought was a mere child.
 
"And 'twas Sister Celeste who told you whom I sought?" I asked, for lack of courage to say more.
 
? 383 ?
 
"Yes, to-night, while we waited for you beside the ruins of the old factory. Oh, how far away it all seems now!" and she pointed backward across the waters. "Poor, poor girl! Poor Captain de Croix! Oh, it is all so sad, so unutterably sad to me! I knew them both so well, Monsieur," and she rested her bowed head upon one hand, staring out into the night, and speaking almost as if to herself alone; "yet I never dreamed that he was a nobleman of France, or that he had married Marie Faneuf. She was so sweet a girl then,—and now to be buried alive in that wilderness! Think you that he truly loved her?"
 
"I almost have faith that he did, Mademoiselle," I answered gravely. "He was greatly changed from his first sight of her face, though he was a difficult man to gauge in such matters. There was a time when I believed him in love with you."
 
She tossed her head.
 
&quo............