that a woman can bear. I wish this talk had not come now, but, since
it has come, it is better to speak plainly. You see, you misunderstand.
A heathen has a heart as another--has a life to be spoiled or made happy
as another. Had there been one honest passion in your treatment of me--
in your marrying me--there would be something on which to base mutual
respect, which is more or less necessary when one is expected to love.
But--but I will not speak more of it, for it chokes me, the insult to me,
not as I was, but as I am. Then it would probably have driven me mad,
if I had known; now it eats into my life like rust."

He made a motion as if to take her hands, but lifting them away quietly
she said: "You forget that there are others present, as well as the fact
that we can talk better without demonstration."

He was about to speak, but she stopped him. "No, wait," she said;
"for I want to say a little more. I was only an Indian girl, but you
must remember that I had also in my veins good white blood, Scotch blood.
Perhaps it was that which drew me to you then--for Lali the Indian girl
loved you. Life had been to me pleasant enough--without care, without
misery, open, strong and free; our people were not as those others which
had learned the white man's vices. We loved the hunt, the camp-fires,
the sacred feasts, the legends of the Mighty Men; and the earth was a
good friend, whom we knew as the child knows its mother."

She paused. Something seemed to arrest her attention. Frank followed
her eyes. She was watching Captain Vidall and Marion. He guessed what
she was thinking--how different her own wooing had been from theirs, how
concerning her courtship she had not one sweet memory--the thing that
keeps alive more love and loyalty in this world than anything else.
Presently General Armour joined them, and Frank's opportunity was over