with a sharp cry.

"What is the matter, mademoiselle?"

For a second or two she snipped furiously, and then--"This is the
matter!" she cried, plunging her fingers within the lining.
"A dispatch! He carried one after all!" She dragged forth a paper
and held it up in triumph.

"Give it to me, please. But I say that you must and shall,
mademoiselle!" John's head swam, but he stepped and caught her by
the wrists.

And with that the paper fell to the ground. He held her wrist; he
felt only the magnetic touch, looked into her eyes, and understood.
From wonder at his outburst they passed to fear, to appeal, to love.
Yes, they shrank from him, sick with shame and self-comprehension,
pitifully seeking to hide the wound. But it would not by any means
be hid. A light flowed from it, blinding him.

"You hurt! Oh, you hurt!"

He dropped her hands and strode away, leaving the paper at her feet.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE DISMISSAL.

The Commandant tapped the dispatch on the table before him, with a
_ruse_ smile.

"I was right then, after all, M. a Clive, in maintaining that your
comrade carried a message from the General. My daughter has told me
how you came, between you, to discover it. That you should have
preserved the tunic is no less than providential; indeed, I had all
along supposed it to be your own."

John waited, with a glance at the document, which lay with the seal
downward, seemingly intact.

"It is addressed," the Commandant pursued, "in our ordinary cypher to
the Marquis de Vaudreuil at Montreal. In my own mind I have not the
least doubt that it instructs him--the pressure to the south having
been relieved by the victory at Fort Carillon--to send troops up to
us and to M. de Noyan at Fort Frontenac. My good friend up there has
been sending down appeals for reinforcements at the rate of two a
week, and has only ceased of late in stark despair. It is evident
that your comrade carried a message of some importance to Montreal;
and I have sent for you, monsieur, to ask: Are you in a condition to
travel?"

"You wish me to carry this dispatch, monsieur?"

"If you tell me that you are fit to travel. Indeed it is a privilege
which you have a right to claim, and M. de Vaudreuil will doubtless
find some reward for the bearer. Young men were ambitious in my
day--eh, M. a Clive?"

John, averting his face, gazed out of window upon the empty
courtyard, the slope of the terrace and the line of embras