eave me behind--oh, leave me in the wood! I can follow when I have
found it. Leave me behind!"

"I cannot spare you, my dear. I should never see you again; and I
cannot spare you. It is sad enough to have lost the child."

"It was your child," said she, pleadingly.

"And you are mine too, my dear. I cannot spare you both."

Therese had never felt before. All that had moved her during her yet
short life--all emotions in one were nothing to the passion of this
moment--the conditional hatred that swelled her soul; conditional--for,
from moment to moment, she believed and disbelieved that Papalier had
destroyed her child. The thought sometimes occurred that he was not the
only cruel one. No one seemed to pity or care for her--not even Margot
or the girls came near her. She more than once was about to seek and
appeal to them; but her master held her bridle, and would not permit her
to stop or turn, saying occasionally that the lives of all depended on
perfect quiet and order in the march. When they arrived at the cross,
at the junction of the four roads, they halted, and there she told her
story, and was convinced that the grieved women knew nothing of her loss
till that moment. It was too late now for anything but compassion.

Jean Francais soon appeared with a troop so numerous, that all necessity
for caution and quiet was over. They could hardly meet an equal force
during the remainder of the march, and might safely make the forests and
ravines echo to their progress. Jean took off his cocked hat in
saluting Toussaint, and commended his punctuality and his arrangements.

"Jean always admires what my husband does," observed Margot to her
acquaintance Jacques. "You hear how he is praising him for what he has
done to-night."

"To be sure. Everybody praises Toussaint Breda," replied Jacques.

The wife laughed with delight.

"Everybody praises him but me," pursued Jacques. "I find fault with him
sometimes; and to-night particularly."

"Then you are wrong, Jacques. You know you have everybody against you."

"Time will show that I am right. Time will show the mischief of sending
away any whites to do us harm in far countries."

"Oh, you do not blame him for helping away Monsieur Bayou!"

"Yes, I do."

"Why, we have been under him ever since we were children--and a kind
youth he was then. And he taught my husband to read, and made him his
coachman; and then he made him overseer; and he has always