t. "You know well why."

"No, no," he answered. "He was put in prison, escaped, made for the
river, was pursued, fought, and was killed. So much for serving you."

"Will you answer me one question?" said I. "Is my wife well? Is she
safe? She is there set among villainies."

"Your wife?" he answered, sneering. "If you mean Mademoiselle Duvarney,
she is not there." Then he added solemnly and slowly: "She is in no fear
of your batteries now--she is beyond them. When she was there, she was
not child enough to think that foolish game with the vanished chaplain
was a marriage. Did you think to gull a lady so beyond the minute's
wildness? She is not there," he added again in a low voice.

"She is dead?" I gasped. "My wife is dead?"

"Enough of that," he answered with cold fierceness. "The lady saw the
folly of it all, before she had done with the world. You--you, monsieur!
It was but the pity of her gentle heart, of a romantic nature. You--you
blundering alien, spy, and seducer!"

With a gasp of anger I struck him in the face, and whipped out my sword.
But the officers near came instantly between us, and I could see that
they thought me gross, ill-mannered, and wild, to do this thing before
the General's tent, and to an envoy.

Doltaire stood still a moment. Then presently wiped a little blood from
his mouth, and said:

"Messieurs, Captain Moray's anger was justified; and for the blow he
will justify that in some happier time--for me. He said that I had lied,
and I proved him wrong. I called him a spy and a seducer--he sought
to shame, he covered with sorrow, one of the noblest families of New
France--and he has yet to prove me wrong. As envoy I may not fight him
now, but I may tell you that I have every cue to send him to hell one
day. He will do me the credit to say that it is not cowardice that stays
me."

"If no coward in the way of fighting, coward in all other things," I
retorted instantly.

"Well, well, as you may think." He turned to go. "We will meet there,
then?" he said, pointing to the town. "And when?"

"To-morrow," said I.

He shrugged his shoulder as to a boyish petulance, for he thought it an
idle boast. "To-morrow? Then come and pray with me in the cathedral,
and after that we will cast up accounts--to-morrow," he said, with a
poignant and exultant malice. A moment afterwards he was gone, and I was
left alone.

Presently I saw a boat shoot out from the shore below, and he was in it.
Seeing me,