-La Tour held out his wrists, and looked at them
with a sharp smile.

"Let D'Aulnay shake a warrant, monsieur. He must needs have you before
he can carry you in chains to France."

She seized La Tour's hands, with a swift impulse of atoning to them for
the thought of such indignity, and kissed his wrists. He set his teeth
on a trembling lip.

"I should be a worthless, aimless vagrant without you, Marie. You are
young, and I give you fatigue and heart-sickening peril instead of
jewels and merry company."

"The merriest company for us at present, monsieur, are the men of our
honest garrison. If Edelwald, who came so lately, complains not of this
New World life, I should endure it merrily enough. And you know I seldom
now wear the jewels belonging to our house. Our chief jewel is buried in
the ground."

She thought of a short grave wrapped in fogs near Fort St. John; of fair
curls and sweet childish limbs, and a mouth shouting to send echoes
through the river gorge; of scamperings on the flags of the hall; and of
the erect and princely carriage of that diminutive presence the men had
called "my little lord."

"But it is better for the boy that he died, Marie," murmured La Tour.
"He has no part in these times. He might have survived us to see his
inheritance stripped from him."

They were silent until Marie said, "You have a long march before you
to-morrow, monsieur."

"Yes; we ought to throw ourselves into these mangers," said La Tour.

One wall was lined with bunks like those in the outer room. In the lower
row travelers' preparations were already made for sleeping.

"I am yet of the mind, monsieur," observed Marie, "that you should have
made this journey entirely by sea."

"It would cost me too much in time to round Cape Sable twice. Nicholas
Denys can furnish ship as well as men, if he be so minded. My lieutenant
in arms next to Edelwald," said La Tour, smiling over her, "my equal
partner in troubles, and my lady of Fort St. John will stand for my
honor and prosperity until I return."

Marie smiled back.

"D'Aulnay has a fair wife, and her husband is rich, and favored by the
king, and has got himself made governor of Acadia in your stead. She
sits in her own hall at Port Royal: but poor Madame D'Aulnay! She has
not thee!"

At this La Tour laughed aloud. The ring of his voice, and the clang of
his breastplate which fell over on the floor as he arose, woke an
answering sound. It did not come from the ou