"I am Cherry-Maid to the three fires," she said; "in bud at Adriutha, in blossom at Carenay, in fruit at Danascara."
"Your name?"
"Lyn Montour."
I almost leaped from the floor in my excitement; yet the engrafted Oneida instinct of a sachem chained me motionless. "You are the wife of Walter Butler," I said deliberately, in English.
A wave of crimson stained her face and shoulders. Suddenly she covered her face with her hands.
"Little sister," I said gently, "is it not the truth? Does a Quiver-bearer lie, O Blossom of Carenay?"
Her hands fell away; she raised her head, the tears shining on her heavy lashes: "It is the truth."
"His wife?" I repeated slowly.
"His wife, O Bearer of Arrows! He took me at the False Faces' feast, and the Iroquois saw. Yet the cherries were still green at Danascara. Twice the Lenape covered their faces; twice 'The Two Voices' unveiled his face. So it was done there on the Kennyetto." She leaned swiftly toward me: "Twice he denied me at Niagara. Yet once, when our love was new--when I still loved him--he acknowledged me here in this very house, in the presence of a County Magistrate, Sir John Johnson. I am his wife, I, Lyn Montour! I have never lied to woman or man, O my elder brother!"
"And that is why you have come back?"
"Yes; to search--for something to help me--some record--God knows!--I have searched and searched--" She stretched out her bare arms and gazed hopelessly around the paper-littered floor.
"Will not Sir John uphold you with his testimony?" I asked.
"He? No! He also denies it. What can a woman expect of a man who has broken parole?" she added, in contempt.
I leaned toward her, speaking slowly, and with deadly emphasis: "Dare Walter Butler deny what the Iroquois Nation may attest?"
"He dare," she said, burning eyes on mine. "I am more Algonquin than Huron, and more than nine-tenths white. What is it to the Iroquois that this man puts me away? It was the Mohican and Lenape who veiled their faces, not the Iroquois. What is it to white men that he took me and has now put me away? What is it to them that he now takes another?"
"Another? Whom?" My lips scarcely formed the question.
"I do not know her name. When he returned from the horrors of Cherry Valley Sir Frederick Haldimand refused to see him. Yet he managed to make love to Sir Frederick's kinswoman--a child--as I was when he took me----"
She closed her eyes. I saw the lashes all wet again, but her voice did not tremble: "He is at Niagara with his Rangers--or was. And--when I came to him he laughed at me, bidding me seek a new lover at the fort----"