The lights shone uncertainly in the commandant’s waiting-room.  It was the room where I had met the English captive.  From a defiant boy to a court lady!  It was a long road, and I was conscious of all the steps that had gone to make it.  I went to the woman in silk who waited by the door.  She stood erect and silent, but her eyes shone softly through a haze, and when I bent to kiss her hand I found that she was quivering from feet to hair.

“Monsieur!” she whispered unsteadily, “monsieur!” Then I felt her light touch.  “God is good.  I have prayed for your safety night and day.  Ah—­but your shoulder!  They did not tell me.  Are you wounded, monsieur?”

I was cold as a clod.  She had forgiven Starling.  She had walked with him.  I answered the usual thing mechanically.  “My shoulder,—­it is a scratch, madame.”  I kept my lips on her hand, and with the feeling her touch brought me I could not contain my bitterness.  “Madame, you wear rich raiment.  Does that mean that you and Lord Starling are again friends?”

She drew away.  “Monsieur, should we not be friends?”

“Have you forgiven Lord Starling, madame?”

She looked at me with wistful quiet.  In her strange gown she seemed saddened, matured.  And she answered me gravely.  “Monsieur, please understand.  My cousin and I——­ Why, we traveled side by side in the Iroquois canoes.  He served me, was careful of me; he—­he has suffered for me, monsieur.  I was hard to him for a long time,—­a longer time than I like to remember.  But I could not but listen to his explanation.  And, whatever he did, he is, after all, my cousin, and he regrets deeply all that happened.  As to this gown,—­it is one I wore in Boston.  My cousin brought it in his canoe and left it here at the garrison when he went west.  Monsieur”——­

“Yes, madame.”

“Monsieur, I was wrong when I suspected my cousin.  I have an unkind nature in many ways.  He came here to find me,—­for that alone.  He honors you greatly for all you have done for me.  I hope that you will give him opportunity to thank you as he wishes.”

I thought of Starling’s great voice, his air of power.  “I hope to meet your cousin,” I replied.

It was a churlish return, and she had been gentle.  The chill that fell between us was of my making.  I knew that with every second of silence I was putting myself more deeply in the wrong.  But I had to ask one thing more.

“Madame, they tell me here that you say that you regret our marriage,—­that I forced you to bear my name.  Have you said that?”

I could not be blind to the hurt in her face.  “Monsieur, how can you ask?”

And then I was shamed.  I knelt again to her hand.  “Only to prove in open words that Lord Starling lied.  Did you think I doubted?  No, madame, no woman of our house has ever had finer pride or a truer instinct.  Believe me, I see that.  But so the story flies.  Madame, all eyes are on us.  We must define the situation in some manner as regards the world.  May I talk to you of this?”