"No--I mean a woman! Now, Rebecca, will you sit down till I tell you
all about it?"

"Sir," interjects the young gentleman of the cloth, "I protest there
are things that a maid ought not to hear!"

"Then, sir, have a care that you say none of them under cloak of
religion! _Honi soit qui mal y pense_! The mind that thinketh no evil
taketh no evil."

Then I turned to Rebecca, standing with a startled look in her eyes.

"Rebecca, Madame Radisson has told you how Jack was left to be tortured
by the Indians?"

"Hortense has told me."

"And how he risked his life to save an Indian girl's life?"

"Yes," says Rebecca, with downcast lids.

"That Indian girl came and untied Jack's bonds the night of the
massacre. They escaped together. When he went snow-blind, Mizza
hunted and snared for him and kept him. Her people were all dead; she
could not go back to her tribe--if Jack had left her in the north, the
hostiles would have killed her. Jack brought her home with him----"

"He ought to have put her in a house of correction," snapped Rebecca.

"Rebecca! Why would he put her in a house of correction? What had she