be happy, too, if Rene were here and came to
spend half of every day with me. I--"

"Why, what a silly girl you are!" Alice exclaimed, her face reddening
prettily. "How foolishly you prattle! I'm sure I don't trouble myself
about Lieutenant Beverley--what put such absurd nonsense into your
head, Adrienne?"

"Because, that's what, and you know it's so, too. You love him just as
much as I love Rene, and that's just all the love in the world, and you
needn't deny it, Alice Roussillon!"

Alice laughed and hugged the wee, brown-faced mite of a girl until she
almost smothered her.

It was growing dusk when Adrienne left Roussillon place to go home. The
wind cut icily across the commons and moaned as it whirled around the
cabins and cattle-sheds. She ran briskly, muffled in a wrap, partly
through fear and partly to keep warm, and had gone two-thirds of her
way when she was brought to an abrupt stop by the arms of a man. She
screamed sharply, and Father Beret, who was coming out of a cabin not
far away, heard and knew the voice.

"Ho-ho, my little lady!" cried Adrienne's captor in a breezy, jocund
tone, "you wouldn't run over a fellow, would you?" The words were
French, but the voice was that of Captain Farnsworth, who laughed while
he spoke. "You jump like a rabbit, my darling! Why, what a lively
little chick of a girl it is!"

Adrienne screamed and struggled recklessly.

"Now don't rouse up the town," coaxed the Captain. He was just drunk
enough to be quite a fool, yet sufficiently sober to imagine himself
the most proper person in the world. "I don't mean you any harm,
Mademoiselle; I'll just see you safe home, you know; 'scort you to your
residence; come on, now--that's a good girl."

Father Beret hurried to the spot, and when in the deepening gloom he
saw Adrienne flinging herself violently this way and that, helplessly
trying to escape from the clasp of a man, he did to perfection what a
priest is supposed to be the least fitted to do. Indeed, considering
his age and leaving his vocation out of the reckoning, his performance
was amazing. It is not certain that the blow dealt upon Governor
Hamilton's jaw by M. Roussillon was a stiffer one than that sent
straight from the priest's shoulder right into the short ribs of
Captain Farnsworth, who there-upon released a mighty grunt and doubled
himself up.

Adrienne recognized her assailant at the first and used his name freely
during the struggle. When Father Beret a