rned alive
at the stake, they were flayed; their bones were broken to pieces by
stones--but they blazed trails with their blood in the wilderness from
New Orleans to Hudson's Bay. They paid for the land with their lives.
Then the English came and took it, and since that time--one hundred and
fifty years--we have been slaves."

"You do not look like a slave," she answered, "and you have not acted
like a slave. If you were to do the things in France that you've done
here, you wouldn't be free as you are to-day."

"What have I done?" he asked darkly.

"You were the cause of what happened at Barbazon's last night,"--he
smiled evilly--"you are egging on the roughs to break up the Orange
funeral to-day; and there is all the rest you know so well."

"What is the rest I know so well?" He looked closely at her, his long,
mongrel eyes half-closing with covert scrutiny.

"Whatever it is, it is all bad and it is all yours."

"Not all," he retorted coolly. "You forget your Gipsy friend. He did his
part last night, and he's still free."

They had entered the last little stretch of wood in which her home lay,
and she slackened her footsteps slightly. She felt that she had been
unwise in challenging him; that she ought to try persistently to win
him over. It was repugnant to her, still it must be done even yet. She
mastered herself for Ingolby's sake and changed her tactics.

"As you glory in what you have done, you won't mind being responsible
for all that's happened," she replied in a more friendly tone.

She made an impulsive gesture towards him.

"You have shown what power you have--isn't that enough?" she asked. "You
have made the crowd shout, 'Vive Marchand!' You can make everything
as peaceful as it is now upset. If you don't do so, there will be much
misery. If peace must be got by force, then the force of government will
get it in the end. You have the gift of getting hold of the worst men
here, and you have done it; but won't you now master them again in
the other way? You have money and brains; why not use them to become a
leader of those who will win at last, no matter what the game may be?"

He came close to her. She shrank inwardly, but she did not move. His
greenish eyes were wide open in the fulness of eloquence and desire.

"You have a tongue like none I ever heard," he said impulsively. "You've
got a mind that thinks, you've got dash and can take risks. You took
risks that day on the Carillon Rapids. It w