When Zulma found herself alone in her room, she opened the note of Cary Singleton. She noticed that it was moist and crumpled in her hand. It had been a sore trial to wait so long before acquainting herself with its contents, but she felt, as some sort of compensation, that it had served to nerve her to the animated dialogue which she had held with Batoche.

"That paper," she said, "urged me to be brave. I knew that he who had written it would have expressed the same sentiments under the circumstance."

The note was very brief and simple. It read thus:

When Zulma had read the letter once, she smoothed it out gently on her knee, threw her head back into her chair, and closed her eyes. After an interval of full five minutes, she roused herself and took up the paper again. This time the cheek was white, the eye quenched, and the broad forehead seemed visibly to droop under the weight of a gathering care.

"Five lines ... eighty-four words ... lead pencil ... paper torn front pocket book...."

These were the only words she said, the effect of a mental calculation so characteristic of her sex. But swifter than words could have spoken, she went through the whole contents of the letter, replying to its every expressed point, supplying its every insinuation, and supplementing the effect of it all by her own kindred thoughts and feelings.

He had desired to speak to her last night as they parted in the snow-storm at the door of the lower hall. She had expected that word of farewell. It was to have been the culmination of the evening, the crystallisation of all the undefined and unexpressed sentiment which had passed between them. If he had not spoken, either through emotion, timidity, or from whatever cause, she would have done so. The presence of Pauline would have been no obstacle. The presence of her father would have been no obstacle. The presence of her father would have been rather an incentive. But at the supreme moment, the shadow of Batoche fell upon the lighted door, like a blight of fate, the current of all their thoughts were turned elsewhere, and the exquisite opportunity was lost.

And now he was gone. Alas! It was only too true to say that neither he nor she knew what future lay in store for him. The soldier always carries his life in his hands, and the chances of death are tenfold in his case.

When he spoke of their friendship and asked a slight remembrance, her own heart was the lexicon which gave the true interpretation to words that appeared timid on paper. Zulma was too brave a girl to hide the real meaning of her feelings from herself, nor would she have feared to confess them to anybody else. Least of all, in her opinion, should Cary ignore them. In other circumstances she would have preferred the lingering indefiniteness and the gradual developments which are perhaps the sweetest of all phases of love, but in the midst of danger, in the presence of death, there could be no hesitation, and Zulma concluded her long meditation with two practical resolves—the first, an instant answer to the note, the second, the devising of means to meet Cary again during the progress of hostilities.

When these determinations were made, her features resumed their usual serenity, her beautiful head rose in its old pride of carriage, and something very like a saucy laugh fluttered over her lips.

"I am sorry I offended old Batoche," she murmured, folding the paper and hiding it in her bosom. "He would have been just my man."

She had scarcely uttered the words when her father entered and said:

"Batoche asks to see you, my dear."