in the early future scenes and sufferings from which, only an hour before, all had believed themselves to be utterly exempt. For some moments they continued silently gazing on each other, as if to read the thoughts that were passing through the minds of each, when, taking the hand of the noble woman in his own, he pressed it affectionately as he remarked—

“Ellen, you have ever been my friend and counsellor, as well as the adored wife with which heaven has blessed me, even beyond all I could have desired on earth. Tell me candidly your opinion. What course ought I to pursue on this occasion? One passage in the dispatch leaves it, in some degree, optional to regulate my actions by circumstances. 'If it be yet practicable,' writes the General. Now, I confess my mind is pretty well made up on the subject, but, nevertheless, I should like to have your opinion to sustain me. Thus armed, I can enter upon my plans with the greater confidence of success.”

“But, dear Headley, tell me what is your opinion, then I will frankly state my own.”

“To retreat, as ordered. I have not the excuse to offer if I would, that the order of the General is impracticable; besides, to remain here longer would only be to insure our subsequent fall. Even if the captors of Mackinaw should fail to carry our weak post, some other force will be sent to succeed them.”

Mrs. Headley shook her head, while a faint but melancholy smile passed over her fine features.

“I grieve to differ with you, Headley,” she at length said; “but I like not the idea of this abandonment of the fort, to enter on a retreat fraught with every danger to us all. Here, well provisioned and armed, weak though be your force, you can but fall into the hands of a generous foe. Better that than perish by the tomahawk in the wilderness.”

“How mean you, my dear?” returned her husband, slightly annoyed that she differed from him, in the decision at which he had already arrived. “What chance of harm is there so great in marching through the woods as in remaining here? Have we not five hundred Pottowatomie warriors to escort us to Fort Wayne?”

“Alas, my too confiding husband, it is from these very people you have named that most I fear the danger.”

“Nonsense!” returned Captain Headley in a tone of gentle rebuke, while he pressed his lips to the expansive brow of his companion; “this is unkind, Ellen. Why distrust these our staunchest friends? I would rely upon Winnebeg as upon myself. He is too noble a fellow not to hold treachery in abhorrence.”

“Nay, nay,” continued Mrs. Headley; “think not for a moment that I doubt Winnebeg; but there is another in the camp of the Pottowatomies who has scarcely less influence with the tribe, and who may take advantage of the present crisis of affairs, and turn them to his own purpose.

“Who do you mean, Ellen, and what purpose? Really, it is important that I should know. What purpose, what motive, can he have?” eagerly questioned Captain Headley.

“The purpose and motive those which often make the gentle tigers, the timid daring, the irresolute confirmed of will—Love.”

“Love! what love? whose love? and what has that to do with the fidelity of the Pottowatomies?”

“The love of Wau-nan-gee, the once gentle and modest son of Winnebeg, who, scarce three months since, could not gaze into a white woman's eyes without melting softness beaming from his own, and the rich, ripe peach-blush crimsoning his dark cheek.”

“And what now?” questioned Captain Headley, seriously.

“My love,” resumed Mrs. Headley, placing her hand emphatically on his shoulder, “you know I have never concealed from you anything that regarded myself. I have had no secrets from you; but this is one which affects another. Except for the present aspect of affairs, when you should be duly informed of that which bears reference to our immediate position, I should have felt myself bound by every tie of delicacy and honor, not less than of inclination, to have kept confined to my own bosom that which I am now to reveal in the fullest confidence, on the sole understanding that the slightest allusion shall never be made by you hereafter to the subject.”

“This becomes mysterious,” rejoined the commandant, smiling; “but Ellen, pleasantry apart, I promise you most truly—and, shall I add, on the honor of an officer and a gentleman, that your disclosure shall be sacred.”

“Good! now that I have quieted my own mind, by exacting from you what in fact was not absolutely necessary, I will explain as briefly as I can. Do you recollect the evening of Maria Heywood's marriage with Ronayne?”

“Yes.”

“And you remarked the agitation evinced by Wau-nan-gee, during the ceremony, and particularly at the close, when Ronayne, as customary, kissed his bride?”

“I noticed that there was some confusion caused by his abrupt departure, but I neither knew nor inquired the cause; I was too interested in the performance of the ceremony to think of anything but the happiness that awaited them, and which they appeared so much to desire themselves.”

“Well, no matter; but you must know that all the agitation of the youth was caused by his jealousy of the good fortune of Ronayne.”

“Jealous of Ronayne?” exclaimed Captain Headley with unfeigned surprise. “Ha! ha! ha! excuse me, my dear Ellen, but I cannot avoid being amused at the strangeness of the conceit.”

“It was even so,” returned Mrs. Headley, gravely, “and a source of unhappiness I fear it will prove to us all that it was so.”

“Proceed,” said her husband.

“Are you aware that the son of Winnebeg has never entered the fort nor been even in the neighborhood since the night of that marriage?” pursued his wife.

“I do not believe he has been seen since,” remarked Captain Headley.

“I know that he has not; but yet he is ever near, seemingly bent on one purpose.”

“Love?” interposed the Captain, smiling.

“Yes, love! but a fearful love—though the love of a smooth-faced boy—a love that may bring down destruction upon us all.”

“Ellen, you begin to fill me with alarm,” remarked her husband, gravely. “You are not a woman to be startled by trifles, and there is that in your manner just now which fully satisfies me of the importance of what you have to communicate.”

CHAPTER II.

“You know my love for Mrs. Ronayne,” continued Mrs. Headley, after a pause of a few minutes. “Even as though she were my own daughter, I regard her, and would do for her all that a fond mother could for her child. Only yesterday afternoon, while Ronayne and the Doctor were out with a party fishing on the old ground above Hardscrabble, she expressed a wish to visit the tomb of her poor mother, who, dying within a week after her marriage, had been buried near the base of the summer-house on the grounds attached to their cottage, and asked me to accompany her. Of course I consented; and as you were busily engaged, you did not particularly notice my absence. We crossed the river in the scow, and ascended leisurely to the garden. It struck me as we walked that the figure of a man, seemingly an Indian, floated rapidly past within the paling of the garden, but I could not distinctly trace the outline, and therefore assumed that I had been deceived, and so said nothing to my companion on the subject.

“We had not been long in the garden when Mrs. Ronayne, leaving me to saunter among and cull from the rich flowers which grew in wild luxuriance around, begged me to wait for her a few minutes while she ascended to the summer-house to commune in private with her thoughts, and indulge the feelings which had been called up, at this her first visit since the place had been abandoned, to the once happy residence of her girlhood. At her entrance, I distinctly heard her give a low shriek, but, taking it for granted that this