“Not for a concerted attack.”

“But who would make a concerted attack?”

I lengthened my stroke till the canoe quivered.  “I am not sure.  I have been shadowed.  I thought it was by your order.  I cannot talk and paddle, monsieur.”

But I could paddle and think.  And always I saw the meadow as we had found it that first day with drifts of white butterflies over the flowers, and the woods warm and beckoning.  How would the meadow look now?

But when we came to it I thought it looked unchanged, save that the fog made all things sinister.  We crashed through the guarding reeds, and I let the canoe drive hard upon the sand.  No one was in sight, and a wolf was whining at the edge of the timber.  I leaped to the shore.

I think that I called as I stumbled forward.  I saw the ashes of a dead fire, and a cask that had held rum lying with the sides and end knocked in.  Then I saw a dead body.

I did not hasten then.  My feet crawled.  The body lay sprawled and limp with its out-stretched fingers clutching.  One hand pointed toward the woman’s cabin.

I turned the corpse over.  It was Simon.  His scarlet head was still dripping, but his face was untouched.  I saw that he had died despairing, and I laid him back with a prayer on my lips but with the lust to kill in my heart.

I went through the cabins quickly but methodically.  I think that I made no sound of grief or excitement, but I knew indefinitely that Lord Starling was following me, and that, at horribly measured intervals, he gave short, panting groans.  But I did not speak to him, nor he to me.

I spoke for the first time at the woman’s cabin.  I looked within and saw that it was untouched; then I put out my arm and barred Lord Starling’s way.

“I have never stepped in here, and you shall not,” I told him with my jaws set, and I think that I struck him across the face, though of that I have never been quite sure.

In my own lodge I found havoc.  Bales had been broken open, and my papers were thrown and trampled.  Many of the papers were blood-smeared.

I examined every cabin and every bale, then went to the ashes of the camp fire and stood still.  Lord Starling followed, and I heard his smothered groan.  I took out my knife.

“I shall kill you if you make that noise again,” I said.

I think that I spoke quietly, but he stepped back.  I saw that he was afraid,—­afraid of losing his miserable, mistaken life,—­and I laughed.  I laughed for a long time.  Hearing myself laugh, I knew that it sounded as if I were near insanity, but I was not.  My head had never been clearer.

Perhaps Lord Starling conquered his fear.  He came nearer and lifted his magnificent, compelling bulk above me.

“Listen!” he began.  “We have been foes; we shall be again; but now we are knit closer than eye and brain in a common cause.  I will deal with you with absolute truth as with my own right hand.  Tell me.  Tell me, in God’s mercy!  What do you know?  Who did this?  What can we do?”