ce with a gentle
glow.

"There isn't much to explain," she said again, in a voice so low that
it was hardly more than a whisper. "But what little there is I want you
to know, so that when you go away you will understand. More than two
hundred years ago a band of gentlemen adventurers were sent over into
this country by Prince Rupert to form the Hudson's Bay Company. That is
history, and you know more of it, probably, than I. One of these men
was Le Chevalier Grosellier. One summer he came up the Churchill, and
stopped at the great rock on which we saw the sun setting to-night, and
which was called the Sun Rock by the Indians. He was struck by the
beauty of the place, and when he went back to France it was with the
plan of returning to build himself a chateau in the wilderness. Two or
three years later he did this, and called the place Fort o' God. For
more than a century, M'sieur, Fort o' God was a place of revel and
pleasure in the heart of this desolation. Early in the nineteenth
century it passed into the hands of a man by the name of D'Arcy, and it
is said that at one time it housed twenty gentlemen and as many ladies
of France for one whole season. Its history is obscure, and mostly
lost. But for a long time after D'Arcy came it was a place of
adventure, of pleasure, and of mystery, very little of which remains
to-day. Those are his pistols above the fire. He was killed by one of
them out there beside the big rock, in a quarrel with one of his guests
over a woman. We think--here--from letters that we have found, that her
name was Camille. There is a chest in my room filled with linen that
bears her name. This dress came from that chest. I have to be careful
of them, as they tear very easily. After D'Arcy the place was almost
forgotten and remained so until nearly forty years ago when my father
came into possession of it. That, M'sieur, is the very simple story of
Fort o' God. Its old name is forgotten. It lives only with us. Others
know it as D'Arcambal House."

"Yes, I have heard of that," said Philip.

He waited for Jeanne, and saw that her fingers were nervously twisting
a bit of ribbon in her lap.

"Of course, that is uninteresting," she continued. "You can almost
guess the rest. We have lived here--alone. Not one of us has ever felt
the desire to leave this little world of ours. It is curious--you may
scarcely believe what I say--but it is true that we look out upon your
big world and laugh at it and disl