I spread the page upon the cloth before me; my eyes raced down the lines. I did not make further reply to her.

"Madam," went on the communication, "say to your august friend Sir Richard that we have reached the end of our endurance of these late delays. The promises of the United States mean nothing. We can trust neither Whig nor Democrat any longer. There is no one party in power, nor will there be. There are two sections in America and there is no nation, and Texas knows not where to go. We have offered to Mr. Tyler to join the Union if the Union will allow us to join. We intend to reserve our own lands and reserve the right to organize later into four or more states, if our people shall so desire. But as a great state we will join the Union if the Union will accept us. That must be seen.

"England now beseeches us not to enter the Union, but to stand apart, either for independence or for alliance with Mexico and England. The proposition has been made to us to divide into two governments, one free and one slave. England has proposed to us to advance us moneys to pay all our debts if we will agree to this. Settled by bold men from our mother country, the republic, Texas has been averse to this. But now our own mother repudiates us, not once but many times. We get no decision.

This then, dear Madam, is from Texas to England by your hand, and we know you will carry it safe and secret. We shall accept this proposal of England, and avail ourselves of the richness of her generosity.

"If within thirty days action is not taken in Washington for the annexation of Texas, Texas will never in the history of the world be one of the United States. Moreover, if the United States shall lose Texas, also they lose Oregon, and all of Oregon. Carry this news--I am persuaded that it will be welcome--to that gentleman whose ear I know you have; and believe me always, my dear Madam, with respect and admiration, yours, for the State of Texas, Van Zandt."

I drew a deep breath as I saw this proof of double play on the part of this representative of the republic of the Southwest. "They are traitors!" I exclaimed. "But there must be action--something must be done at once. I must not wait; I must go! I must take this, at least, to Mr. Calhoun."

She laughed now, joyously clapping her white hands together. "Good!" she said. "You are a man, after all. You may yet grow brain."

"Have I been fair with you thus far?" she asked at length.

"More than fair. I could not have asked this of you. In an hour I have learned the news of years. But will you not also tell me what is the news from Chateau Ramezay? Then, indeed, I could go home feeling I had done very much for my chief."

"Monsieur, I can not do so. You will not tell me that other news."

"Of what?"

"Of your nuptials!"

"Madam, I can not do so. But for you, much as I owe you, I would like to wring your neck. I would like to take your arms in my hands and crush them, until--"

"Until what?" Her face was strange. I saw a hand raised to her throat.

"Until you told me about Oregon!" said I.

I saw her arms move--just one instant--her body incline. She gazed at me steadily, somberly. Then her hands fell.

"Ah, G.o.d! how I hate you both!" she said; "you and her. You _were_ married, after all! Yes, it can be, it can be! A woman may love one man--even though he could give her only a bed of husks! And a man may love a woman, too--one woman! I had not known."

I could only gaze at her, now more in perplexity than ever. Alike her character and her moods were beyond me. What she was or had been I could not guess; only, whatever she was, she was not ordinary, that was sure, and was to be cla.s.sified under no ordinary rule. Woman or secret agent she was, and in one or other ident.i.ty she could be my friend or my powerful enemy, could aid my country powerfully if she had the whim; or damage it irreparably if she had the desire. But--yes--as I studied her that keen, tense, vital moment, she was woman!

A deep fire burned in her eyes, that was true; but on her face was--what? It was not rage, it was not pa.s.sion, it was not chagrin. No, in truth and justice I swear that what I then saw on her face was that same look I had noted once before, an expression of almost childish pathos, of longing, of appeal for something missed or gone, though much desired. No vanity could contemplate with pleasure a look like that on the face of a woman such as Helena von Ritz.

I fancied her unstrung by excitement, by the strain of her trying labor, by the loneliness of her life, uncertain, misunderstood, perhaps, as it was. I wondered if she could be more unhappy than I myself, if life could offer her less than it did to me. But I dared not prolong our masking, lest all should be unmasked.

"It is nothing!" she said at last, and laughed gaily as ever.

"Yes, Madam, it is nothing. I admit my defeat. I shall ask no more favors, expect no further information from you, for I have not earned it, and I can not pay. I will make no promise that I could not keep."

"Then we part even!"

"As enemies or friends?"

"I do not yet know. I can not think--for a long time. But I, too, am defeated."

"I do not understand how Madam can be defeated in anything."

"Ah, I am defeated only because I have won. I have your secret; you do not have mine. But I laid also another wager, with myself. I have lost it. Ceremony or not--and what does the ceremony value?--you _are_ married. I had not known marriage to be possible. I had not known you--you savages. No--so much--I had not known."

"Monsieur, adieu!" she added swiftly.

I bent and kissed her hand. "Madam, _au revoir!_"

"No, _adieu!_ Go!"

CHAPTER XVII

A HUNTER OF b.u.t.tERFLIES

I love men, not because they are men, but because they are not women.--_Queen Christina_.

There was at that time in Montreal a sort of news room and public exchange, which made a place of general meeting. It was supplied with newspapers and the like, and kept up by subscriptions of the town merchants--a s.p.a.cious room made out of the old Methodist chapel on St.

Joseph Street. I knew this for a place of town gossip, and hoped I might hit upon something to aid me in my errand, which was no more than begun, it seemed. Entering the place shortly before noon, I made pretense of reading, all the while with an eye and an ear out for anything that might happen.

As I stared in pretense at the page before me, I fumbled idly in a pocket, with unthinking hand, and brought out to place before me on the table, an object of which at first I was unconscious--the little Indian blanket clasp. As it lay before me I felt seized of a sudden hatred for it, and let fall on it a heavy hand. As I did so, I heard a voice at my ear.

"_Mein Gott_, man, do not! You break it, surely."

I started at this. I had not heard any one approach. I discovered now that the speaker had taken a seat near me at the table, and could not fail to see this object which lay before me.

"I beg pardon," he said, in a broken speech which showed his foreign birth; "but it iss so beautiful; to break it iss wrong."

Something in his appearance and speech fixed my attention. He was a tall, bent man, perhaps sixty years of age, of gray hair and beard, with the gla.s.ses and the unmistakable air of the student. His stooped shoulders, his weakened eye, his thin, blue-veined hand, the iron-gray hair standing like a ruff above his forehead, marked him not as one acquainted with a wild life, but better fitted for other days and scenes.

I pushed the trinket along the table towards him.

"'Tis of little value," I said, "and is always in the way when I would find anything in my pocket."

"But once some one ha.s.s made it; once it ha.s.s had value. Tell me where you get it?"

"North of the Platte, in our western territories," I said. "I once traded in that country."

"You are American?"

"Yes."

"So," he said thoughtfully. "So. A great country, a very great country.

Me, I also live in it."

"Indeed?" I said. "In what part?"