Hardly was he gone when Mizpah came back. She was very pale and calm, and her eyes shone with the fire of some intense purpose. Had I known woman's heart as do some of my friends whom I could mention, I should have fathomed that purpose at her first words. But as I have said, I am slow to understand a woman's hints and objects, though men I can read ere their thoughts find speech. There was a faint glory of the last of sunset on Mizpah's face and hair as she stood facing me, her lips parted to speak. Behind her lay the little garden, with its sunflowers and lupines, and its thicket of pole beans in one corner. Then, beyond the gray fence, the smooth tide of the expanding river, violet-hued, the copper and olive wood, the marshes all greenish amber, and the dusky purple of the hills. It was all stamped upon my memory in delectable and imperishable colours, though I know that at the moment I saw only Mizpah's tall grace, her red-gold hair, the eyes that seemed to bring my spirit to her feet. I was thinking, "Was there ever such another woman's face, or a presence so gracious?" when I realized that she was speaking. "Do I paddle well, Monsieur?" she asked, with the air of one who repeats a question. "Pardon, a thousand pardons, Madame!" I exclaimed. "Yes, you use your paddle excellently well." "And I can shoot, I can shoot very skilfully," she went on, with strong emphasis. "I can handle both pistol and musket." "Indeed, Madame!" said I, considerably astonished. "Ask Marc if I am not a cunning shot," she persisted, while her eyes seemed to burn through me in their eager intentness. "Yes, Father," came Marc's whispered response out of the shadow, where I saw only the bended head of the maid Prudence. "Yes, Father, she is a more cunning marksman than I." I turned again to her, and saw that she expected, that she thirsted for, an answer. But what answer? "Madame," said I, bowing profoundly, and hoping to cover my bewilderment with a courtly speech, "may I hope that you will fire a good shot for me some day; I should account it an honour above all others if I might be indebted to such a hand for such succour." She clasped her hands in a great gladness, crying, "Then I _may_ go with you?" "Go with me!" I cried, looking at her in huge amazement. "She wants to help you find the child," whispered Marc. The thought of this white girl among the perils which I saw before me pierced my heart with a strange pang, and in my haste I cried rudely:-- "Nonsense! Impossible! Why, it would be mere madness!" So bitter was the pain of disappointment which wrung her face that I put out both hands towards her in passionate deprecation. "Forgive me; oh, forgive me, Madame!" I pleaded. "But how _could_ I bring you into such perils?" But she caught my hands and would have gone on her knees to me if I had not stayed her roughly.