"Oh, God!--was I? I wondered; I did not really know; truly I did not know. I seem to remember that I stood up, and then signed some paper, but nothing had any meaning to me. Is that true? Do you know that it is true?" I grasped her hand and held it closely within my own. "I am afraid it is true," I answered. "I know very little law, and it may be that such a ceremony is not legal. Yet I imagine those men were certain as to what they could do. Kirby had planned to marry you from the very first, as I explained to you before. He told me that on the _Warrior_ the night your father died." "Yes, you said so; but I did not quite understand--he planned then--why?" "Because he had heard of your beauty and that you were rich. Were these not reasons enough? But, after he had mistaken you for Rene, the only possible way in which he could hope to gain you was by force. Jack Rale suggested that to him and how it could be done. The other man was a friend of Rale's, a renegade preacher named Gaskins; he is dead." "Dead! Killed?" "Yes; we brought you away after a fight with those fellows. We left Rale bound and Kirby unconscious." "Unconscious, hurt--but not dead?" "He had a bad gash in his skull, but was alive." Kennedy, puffing happily upon a pipe, came loitering about the corner of the hut and approached us. Eloise staggered to her feet, shrinking back against the wall of the shack, her eyes on his face. "That man here!" she cried in terror. "That man? Why, he was at Beaucaire! He is the one to whom I claimed to be Rene." CHAPTER XXVII WE CHOOSE OUR COURSE Tim grinned at me, but did not appear particularly flattered at his reception. "Not quite so fast, yung lady," he said, stuttering a bit and holding the pipe in his hand. "I reckon I wus thar all right, just as ye say, an' thet I did yer a mighty mean turn, but I ain't such a dern ornary cuss as ye think--am I, Cap?" "No, you are not," I hastened to explain. "Miss Beaucaire does not understand, that is all. We have been talking together for some time, but I had forgotten to tell her that you were one of her rescuers. Kennedy here, merely supposed he was doing his duty, until he learned what Kirby contemplated. Then he refused to have any hand in it and the two quarreled. Shall I relate that part of the story?" Her eyes softened, her lips almost smiling. "Yes," she said. "I am glad to know; tell me all." I described Tim's part in the whole tragedy swiftly, while he shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other and occasionally interjected some comment or correction. He was not wholly at ease in the role of hero, nor under the steadfast gaze of her eyes. As I stopped speaking she held out her hand frankly.