"Frontenac lies there," he said. "I told them I should bring you there. It has been a longer road than we thought,--it has been a harder road,--and they have said that I broke my trust. Perhaps they were not wrong--I would have broken it--once. But we shall be there in three days. I will keep my promise to the chiefs; and we--we shall not meet again. It will be better. But I shall keep watch, to-night and twice again. That will be all." He looked down, and at sight of the mute figure his face softened. "Forgive me--I should not have spoken. It has been a mad dream--the waking is hard. When I saw you standing here to-night, I knew that I had no right to come--and still I came. I have called myself a soldier"--his voice was weary--"see, this is what is done to soldiers such as I." One frayed strip of an epaulet yet hung from his shoulder. He tore it off and threw it out into the lake. A little splash, and it was gone. "Good-night, Mademoiselle,--good-night." He turned away. The maid leaned forward and called. Her voice would not come. She called again and again. Then he heard, for he stood motionless. "M'sieu!" He came back slowly, and stood waiting. She was leaning back on her hands. Her hair had fallen over her face, and she shook it back, gazing up and trying to speak. "You said--you said, the end--" He hesitated, as if he dared not meet his thoughts. "You said--See," she fumbled hastily at her bosom, "see, I have kept it." She was holding something up to him. In the dim light he could not make it out. He took it and held it up. It was the dried stem and the crumbling blossom of a daisy. For a moment he kept it there, then, while he looked, he reached into his pocket and drew out the other. "Yes," he said, "yes--" His voice trembled; his hand shook. Her hair had fallen again, and she was trying to fasten it back. He looked at her, almost fiercely, but now her eyes were hidden. "We will go to Frontenac;" he said; "we will go to Frontenac, you and I. But they shall not get you." He caught the hands that were braiding her hair, and held them in his rough grip. "It is too late. Let them break my sword, if they will, still they shall not get you." Her head dropped upon his hands, and for the second time since those days at Onondaga, he felt her tears. For a moment they were motionless; he erect, looking out to the pole-star and over the water that stretched far away to the stone fort, she sobbing and clinging to his scarred hands. Then a desperate look came into his eyes, and he dropped on one knee and caught her shoulders and held her tightly, close against him. "See," he said, with the old mad ring in his voice, "see what a soldier I am! See how I keep my trust! But now--but now it is too late for them all. I am still a soldier, and I can fight, Valerie. And God will be good to us. God grant that we are doing right. There is no other way." "No," she whispered after him; "there is no other way." CHAPTER XIX. FRONTENAC.