"Will you take it, Mademoiselle?" She did not move; and he stood, the soldier, helpless, waiting for a word. He had forgotten everything,--the low, smoke-blackened hut, the responsibility that lay on his shoulders, the danger of the moment,--everything but the slender maid who stood before him, who would not take the flower from his hand. Then he stepped to her side, and, taking away the other flowers from the lace beneath her throat, he placed the single daisy in their stead. Her eyes were nearly closed, and she seemed hardly to know that he was there. "And it may be," he whispered softly, "that we, like the flowers, shall be spared." She turned slowly away, and sank upon the bench. Menard, with a strange, new lightness in his heart, went out into the sunlight. The day wore on. The warm sunbeams, that slipped down through the foliage, lengthened and reached farther and farther to the east. The bright spots of light crept across the grass, climbed the side of the hut and the tree-trunks, lingered on the upreaching twigs, and died away in the blue sky. The evening star shot out its white spears, glowing and radiant, long before the light had gone, or the purple and golden afterglow had faded into twilight. Menard's mind went back to another day, just such a glorious, shining June day as this had been, when he had sat not a hundred yards from this spot, waiting, as now, for the end. He looked at his fingers. They were scarred and knotted; one drunken, frenzied squaw had mangled them with her teeth. He had wondered then how a man could endure such torture as had come to him, and still could live and think, could even struggle back to health. The depression had gone from him now; his mind was more alert than since the night of the capture. Whether it was the bare chance of help from the Big Throat, or the gentle sadness in the face of the maid as she bowed her head to the single daisy on her breast,--something had entered into his nerves and heart, something hopeful and strong, He wondered, as Father Claude came up the path, slowly, laboriously, why the priest should be so saddened. After all, the world was green and bright, and life, even a few hours of it, was sweet. "What news, Father?" The priest shook his head. "Little, M'sieu." "Has the feast begun?" "Not yet. They are assembling before the Long House." "Are they drinking?" "Yes."