isted
on bringing him to account; and who had found means to supplant a
favorite priest on this expedition, for the purpose of watching him.
D'Aulnay bore it with assumed good-humor. He had his religious scruples
as well as his revenges and ambitions. But there were ways in which an
intruding churchman could be martyred by irony and covert abuse, and by
discomfort chargeable to the circumstances of war. Father Vincent de
Paris, on his part, bore such martyrdom silently, but stinted no word of
needed rebuke. A woman's mourning in the dusky tent next to D'Aulnay's
now rose to such wildness of piteous cries as to divert even him from
the shrinkage of Father Vincent's height. No other voice could be heard,
comforting her. She was alone with sorrow in the midst of an army of
fray-hardened men. A look of embarrassment passed over De Charnisay's
face, and he said to the officer nearest him,--

"Remove that woman to another part of the camp."

"The Swiss's wife, my lord?"

"The Swiss's widow, to speak exactly." He turned again with a frowning
smile to the silent Capuchin. "By the proofs she gives, my kindness hath
not been so great to that woman that the church need upbraid me."

Marguerite came out of the tent at a peremptory word given by the
officer at its opening. She did not look toward D'Aulnay de Charnisay,
the power who had made her his foolish agent to the destruction of the
man who loved her. Muffling her heartbroken cries she followed the
subaltern away into darkness--she who had meant at all costs to be
mistress of Penobscot. When distance somewhat relieved their ears,
D'Aulnay took up a paper lying before him on the table and spoke in some
haste to the friar.

"You will go with escort to the walls of the fort, Father Vincent, and
demand to speak with Madame La Tour. She hath, it appears, little
aversion to being seen on the walls. Give into her hand this paper."

The soldier under the cowl, dreading that his unbroken silence might be
noted against him, made some muttering remonstrance, at which D'Aulnay
laughed while tying the packet.

"When churchmen go to war, Father Vincent, they must expect to share its
risks, at least in offices of mediation. Look you: they tell me the
Jesuits and missionaries of Quebec and Montreal are ever before the
soldier in the march upon this New World. But Capuchins are a lazy,
selfish order. They would lie at their ease in a monastery, exerting
themselves only to spy upon thei