"I thought you knew." The disappointment in his voice was almost despair.

"Then--it was only accidentally--you helped us ?" "Only accidentally that I helped _you_--yes! But Marion--" Nathaniel crushed Neil's hand in both his own and his eyes betrayed more than he would have said.

"I've got an armed ship and a dozen men out there and if I can help Marion by blowing up St.James--I'll do it!" For a time only the tense breathing of the two broke the silence of their lips.

They looked into each other's face, Nathaniel with all the eagerness of the passion with which Marion had stirred his soul, Neil half doubting, as if he were trying to find in this man's eyes the friendship which he had not questioned a few minutes before.
"Obadiah told you nothing ?" he asked again, as if still unbelieving.
"Nothing." "And you have not seen Marion--to talk with her ?" "No." Nathaniel had dropped his companion's hand, and now Neil walked to the log and sat down with his face turned in the direction from which their pursuers must come if they entered the swamp.
Suddenly the memory of Obadiah's note shot into Nathaniel's head, the councilor's admonition, his allusion to a visitor.

With this memory there recurred to him Obadiah's words at the temple, "If you had remained at the cabin, Nat, you would have known that I was your friend.
She would have come to you, but now--it is impossible." For the first time the truth began to dawn upon him.