noticing the covert allusion, Zulma answered promptly:

"The American officers are all gentlemen. They admire bravery and
devotion wherever they see it, and they would not take unfair advantage
of any enemy. But that is neither here nor now. Answer me. Do you
persevere in your intention or not?"

"Mademoiselle, Joseph Bouchette owes his liberty to you," said Batoche,
and, bowing, he walked out of the room. Sieur Sarpy attempted to detain
him, but without success. He went silently and swiftly as he had come.

An author has said that a wonderful book might be written on Forgotten
Heroes. Joseph Bouchette was one of them. By piloting the Saviour of
Canada in an open boat from Montreal to Quebec, he performed the most
brilliant and momentous single service during the whole war of invasion.
And yet his name is hardly known. No monument of any kind has been
raised to his memory. Nay more, after the lapse of a hundred years, the
material claims of the Bouchette family have been almost entirely
ignored.

IV.

PRACTICAL LOVE.

When Zulma found herself alone in her room, she opened the note of Cary
Singleton. She noticed that it was moist and crumpled in her hand. It
had been a sore trial to wait so long before acquainting herself with
its contents, but she felt, as some sort of compensation, that it had
served to nerve her to the animated dialogue which she had held with
Batoche.

"That paper," she said, "urged me to be brave. I knew that he who had
written it would have expressed the same sentiments under the
circumstance."

The note was very brief and simple. It read thus:

"MADEMOISELLE,--

"I desired to speak to you last night a parting word, but I could
not. I am gone from you, but whither, I cannot tell. The future is
a blank. May I ask this grace? Should I fall, will you cherish a
slight remembrance of me? Your memory will be with me to the last.
Your friendship has been the one ray of light in the darkness of
this war. Should I survive, shall we not meet again?

"Your devoted servant,
"CARY SINGLETON."

When Zulma had read the letter once, she smoothed it out gently on her
knee, threw her head back into her chair, and closed her eyes. After an
interval of full five minutes, she roused herself and took up the paper
again. This time the cheek was white, the eye quenched, and the broad
forehead seemed visibly to droop under the weight of a gathering care