But they had had no words together.

Now, in a room of the citadel which looked out on the darkness of the river and the deeper gloom of the Levis shore, they sat and talked, a single candle burning, their weapons laid on the table between them.
They said little at first, but sat in the window looking down on the town and the river.

At last Iberville spoke.

"Tell me it all as you remember it, Perrot." Perrot, usually swift of speech when once started, was very slow now.

He felt the weight of every word, and he had rather have told of the scalping of a hundred men than of his last meeting with Jessica.