“The runner is here! Euan — Euan! Come back to me!

“Lois de Contrecoeur.”

My eyes fell from the letter to the sleeping runner stretched out at my feet, then shifted vaguely toward the river.

After a while I drew my tablets, quill, and ink-horn from my pouch, and setting it on my knees wrote to her with a heart on fire, yet perfectly controlled.

And after I had ended, I sealed the sheet with balsam, pricking the globule from the tree behind me, and setting over it a leaf of partridge-berry. Also I wrote letters to General Clinton and to Major Parr, sealed them as I had sealed the other, and set a tiny, shining leaf on each.

Then, very gently I bent forward and