pistol at
the priest's head. The girl was a Wyandot from Lake Huron, and had
been baptised but a week before. For a year they lived together in
the Fort here; but when a child was born the husband sent her down
the river to his father's Seigniory below Three Rivers, and himself
wandered westward into the Lakes, and was never again heard of.
The mother died on the voyage, it is said; but the child--
a daughter--reached the Seigniory and was acknowledged, and lived to
marry a cousin, a de Tilly of Roc Sainte-Anne. My mother was her
grand-daughter."

Why had she chosen to tell him this story? He turned to her in some
wonder. But, for whatever reason she had told it, the truth of the
story was written in her face. Hardly could he recognise the
Mademoiselle Diane who had declaimed to him of Joan of Arc and the
glory of fighting for New France. She was gone, and in her place a
girl fronted him, a child almost, with a strange anguish in her
voice, and in her eyes the look of a wild creature trapped. She was
appealing to him. But again, why?

"I think you must be in some trouble, mademoiselle," said he,
speaking the thought that came uppermost. Something prompted him to
add, "Has it to do with Dominique Guyon?" The question seemed to
stab her. She stood up trembling, with a scared face.

"Why should you think I am troubled? What made you suppose--" she
stammered, and stopped again in confusion. "I only wanted you to
understand. Is it not much better when folks speak to one another
frankly? Something may be hidden which seems of no importance, and
yet for lack of knowing it we may misjudge utterly, may we not?"

Heaven knew that of late John had been feeling sorely enough the
torment of carrying about a secret. But to the girl's broken
utterances he held no clue at all, nor could he hit on one.

"See now," she went on, almost fiercely; "you speak of Dominique
Guyon. You suspected something--what, you could not tell; perhaps it
had not even come to a suspicion. But, seeing me troubled--as you
think--at once Dominique's name comes to your lips. Now listen to
the truth, how simple it is. When Armand and I were children . . .
you have heard of Armand?"

"A little; from Father Joly."

"Papa thinks he has behaved dishonourably, and will scarcely allow
his name to be uttered until he shall return from the army, having
redeemed his fault. Papa, though he seems easy, can be very stern on
all questions of h