My dear Phil,—­I hope you’ll forgive me.  But I’m tired of this mess.  I was never cut out for the woods, and so I’m going to dismiss myself, leaving all best wishes behind for you.  Go in and fight.  You’re a devil for fighting, and will surely win.  I’ll only be in the way.  So I’m going back with the ship, which leaves in three or four days.  Was going to tell you this on the night you disappeared.  Am sorry I couldn’t shake hands with you before I left.  Write and let me know how things come out.  As ever,

Tom.

Stunned, Philip dropped the letter.  He lifted his eyes, and a strange cry burst from his lips.  Nothing that Gregson had written could have wrung that cry from him.  It was Jeanne.  She stood in the open door of the tent.  But it was not the Jeanne he had known.  A terrible grief was written in her face.  Her lips were bloodless, her eyes lusterless; deep suffering seemed to have put hollows in her cheeks.  In a moment she had fallen upon her knees beside him and clasped one of his hands in both of her own.

“I am so glad,” she whispered, chokingly.

For an instant she pressed his hands to her face.

“I am so glad—­”

She rose to her feet, swaying slightly.  She turned to the door, and Philip could hear her sobbing as she left him.

XV

Not until the silken flap of the tent had fallen behind Jeanne did power of movement and speech return to Philip.  He called her name and straggled to a sitting posture.  Then he staggered to his feet.  He could scarcely stand.  Shooting pains passed like flashes of electricity through his body.  His right arm was numb and stiff, and he found that it was thickly bandaged.  His head ached, his legs could hardly support him.  He went to raise his left hand to his head, but stopped it in front of him, while a slow smile of understanding crept over his face.  It was swollen and covered with livid bruises.  He wondered if his body looked that way, and sank down exhausted upon his balsam bed.  A minute later Pierre returned with a cup of broth in his hand.

Philip looked at him with less feverish eyes now.  There was an unaccountable change in the half-breed’s appearance, as there had been in Jeanne’s.  His face seemed thinner.  There was a deep gloom in his eyes, a dejected droop to his shoulders.  Philip accepted the broth, and drank it slowly, without speaking.  He felt strengthened.  Then he looked steadily at Pierre.  The old pride had fallen from Pierre like a mask.  His eyes dropped under Philip’s gaze.

Philip held up a hand.

“Pierre!”

The half-breed grasped it and waited.  His lips tightened.

“What is the matter?” demanded Philip.  “What has happened to Jeanne?  You say she was not hurt—­”