evening meal recalled Madame La Tour to the garrison's affairs. Her Swiss lieutenant yet stood by, his arms and chin settled sullenly on his breast; reluctant to go out and pass the barrack door where his wife was sheltered.

"Are sentinels set for the night, Klussman?" inquired the lady.

He stood erect, and answered, "Yes, madame."

"I will not wait for my supper before I hear your news. Discharge it now. I understand the grief you bear, my friend. Your lord will not forget the faithfulness you show toward us."

"Madame, if I may speak again, put that woman out of the gate. If she lingers around, I may do her some hurt when I have a loaded piece in my hand. She makes me less a man."

"But, Klussman, the Sieur de la Tour, whose suspicions of her you have justified, strictly charged that we restrain her here until his return. She has seen and heard too much of our condition."

"Our Indians would hold her safe enough, madame."

"Yet she is a soft, feeble creature, and much exhausted. Could she bear their hard living?"

"Madame, she will requite whoever shelters her with shame and trouble. If D'Aulnay has turned her forth, she would willingly buy back his favor by opening this fortress to him. If he has not turned her forth, she is here by his command. I have thought out all these things; and, madame, I shall say nothing more, if you prefer to risk yourself in her hands instead of risking her with the savages."

The dwarf's mandolin trembled a mere whisper of sound. She leaned her large head against the settle and watched the Swiss denounce his wife.

"You speak good military sense," said the lady, "yet there is monsieur's command. And I cannot bring myself to drive that exhausted creature to a cold bed in the woods. We must venture—we cannot do less—to let her rest a few days under guard. Now let me hear your news."

"It was only this, madame. Word was brought in that two priests from Montreal were wandering above the falls and trying to cross the St. John in order to make their way to D'Aulnay's fort at Penobscot. So I set after them and brought them in, and they are now in the keep, waiting your pleasure."

"Doubtless you did right," hesitated Madame La Tour. "Even priests may be working us harm, so hated are we of Papists. But have them out directly, Klussman. We must not be rigorous. Did they bear any papers?"

"No, madame; and they said they had naught to do with D'Aulnay, but were on a mission to the Abenakis around Penobscot, and had lost their course and wandered here. One of them is that Father Isaac Jogues who was maimed by the Mohawks, when he carried papistry among them, and the other his donné—a name these priests give to any man who of his own free will goes with them to be servant of the mission."

"Bring them out of the keep," said Madame La Tour.

The Swiss walked with ringing foot toward the stairway, and dropped upon one knee to unbar the door in the pavement. He took a key from his pocket and turned it in the lock, and, as he lifted the heavy leaf of beams and crosspieces, his lady held over the darkness a candle, which she had taken from one of the buffet sconces. Out of the vault rose a chill breath from which the candle flame recoiled.

"Monsieur," she spoke downward, "will you have the goodness to come up with your companion?"

Her voice resounded in the hollow; and some movement occurred below as soft-spoken answer was made:—

"We come, madame."

A cassocked Jesuit appeared under the light, followed by a man wearing the ordinary dress of a French colonist. They ascended the stone steps, and Klussman replaced the door with a clank which echoed around the hall. Marie gave him the candle, and with clumsy touch he fitted it to the sconce while she led her prisoners to the fire. The Protestant was able to dwell with disapproval on the Jesuit's black gown, though it proved the hard service of a missionary priest; the face of Father Jogues none but a savage could resist.

His downcast eyelids were like a woman's, and so was his delicate mouth. The cheeks, shading inward from their natural oval, testified to a life of hardship. His full and broad forehead, bordered by a fringe of hair left around his tonsure, must have overbalanced his lower face, had that not been covered by a short beard, parted on the upper lip and peaked at the end. His eyebrows were well marked, and the large-orbed eyes seemed so full of smiling meditation that Marie said to herself, "This lovely, woman-looking man hath the presence of an angel, and we have chilled him in our keep!"

"Peace be with you, madame," spoke Father Jogues.

"Monsieur, I crave your pardon for the cold greeting you have had in this fortress. We are people who live in perils, and we may be over-suspicious."

"Madame, I have no complaint to bring against you."

Both men were shivering, and she directed them to places on the settle. They sat where the vagrant girl had huddled. Father Jogues warmed his hands, and she noticed how abruptly serrated by missing or maimed fingers was their tapered shape. The man who had gone out to the cook-house returned with platters, and in passing the Swiss lieutenant gave him a hurried word, on which the Swiss left the hall. The two men made space for Father Jogues at their lady's board, and brought forward another table for his donné.

"Good friends," said Marie, "this Huguenot fare is offered you heartily, and I hope you will as heartily take it, thereby excusing the hunger of a woman who has just come in from seafaring."

"Madame," returned the priest, "we have scarcely seen civilized food since leaving Montreal, and we need no urging to enjoy this bounty. But, if you permit, I will sit here beside my brother Lalande."

"As you please," she answered, glancing at the plain young Frenchman in colonial dress with suspicion that he was made the excuse for separating Romanist and Protestant.

Father Jogues saw her glance and read her thought, and silently accused himself of cowardice for shrinking, in his maimed state, from her table with the instincts of a gentle-born man. He explained, resting his hand upon the chair which had been moved from the lady's to his servant's table:—

"We have no wish to be honored above our desert, madame. We are only humble missionaries, and often while carrying the truth have been thankful for a meal of roots or berries in the woods."

"Your humility hurts me, monsieur. On the Acadian borders we have bitter enmities, but the fort of La Tour shelters all faiths alike. We can hardly atone to so good a man for having thrust him into our keep."

Father Jogues shook his head, and put aside this apology with a gesture. The queen of France had knelt and kissed his mutilated hands, and the courtiers of Louis had praised his martyrdom. But such ordeals of compliment were harder for him to endure than the teeth and knives of the Mohawks.

As soon as Le Rossignol saw the platters appearing, she carried her mandolin to the lowest stair step and sat down to play: a quaint minstrel, holding an instrument almost as large as herself. That part of the household who lingered in the rooms above owned this accustomed signal and appeared on the stairs: Antonia Bronck, still disturbed by the small skeleton she had seen Zélie dressing for its grave; and an elderly woman of great bulk and majesty, with sallow hair and face, who wore, enlarged, one of the court gowns which her sovereign, the queen of