"I was in no danger: I had no opportunity of entering into the fight." "So much the better--there were enough of them without you. But your fellow-travellers? Do they still survive? I have come to inquire after them." "Thanks to you and good fortune, they are still alive--even he who was scalped, and whom we had believed to be dead." "Ah! is the scalped man living?" "Yes; he has been badly wounded, and otherwise ill-used; but we have hopes of his recovery." "Take me to him! I have learnt a little surgery from my Indian friends. Let me see your comrade! Perhaps I may be of some service to him?" "We have already dressed his wounds; and I believe nothing more can be done for him, except what time may accomplish. But I have another comrade who suffers from wounds of a different nature, _which you alone can cure_." "Wounds of a different nature?" repeated she, evidently puzzled by my ambiguous speech; "of what nature, may I ask?" I paused before making reply. Whether she had any suspicion of a double meaning to my words, I could not tell. If so, it was not openly evinced, but most artfully concealed by the speech that followed. "During my stay among the Utahs," said she, "I have had an opportunity of seeing wounds of many kinds, and have observed their mode of treating them. Perhaps I may know how to do something for those of your comrade? But you say that I _alone_ can cure them?" "You, and you only." "How is that, stranger? I do not understand you!" "The wounds I speak of are not in the body." "Where, then?" "In the heart." "Oh! stranger, you are speaking in riddles. If your comrade is wounded in the heart, either by a bullet or an arrow--" "It is an arrow." "Then he must die: it will be impossible for any one to save him." "Not impossible for you. You can extract the arrow--you can save him!" Mystified by the metaphor, for some moments she remained gazing at me in silence--her large antelope eyes interrogating me in the midst of her astonishment. So lovely were those eyes, that had their irides been blue instead of brown, I might have fancied they were Lilian's! In all but colour, they looked exactly like hers--as I had once seen them. Spell-bound by the resemblance, I gazed back into them without speaking--so earnestly and so long, that she might easily have mistaken my meaning. Perhaps she did so: for her glance fell; and the circle of crimson suffusion upon her cheeks seemed slightly to extend its circumference, at the same time that it turned deeper in hue. "Pardon me!" said I, "for what may appear unmannerly. I was gazing at a resemblance." "A resemblance?" "Yes! one that recalls the sweetest hour of my life." "I remind you of some one, then?" "Ay--truly." "Some one who has been dear to you?" "Has been, and _is_." "Ah! and who, sir, may I have the fortune to resemble?" "One dear also to you--_your sister_!" "My sister!" "Lilian." CHAPTER EIGHTY THREE. OLD MEMORIES AWAKENED.