ing up the cliff in a staggering,
faint fashion.

"If you meant to stay at the fort, why didn't you decide sooner?" I
demanded roughly.

"I didn't." This doggedly and with downcast eyes.

"Then you go down the lake with the rest and no skulking!"

"Gillespie," answered Louis in a low tone, "there's strength of an ox in
you, but not the wit. Let them go on! Simpleton, I tell you of Miriam."

His words recalled the real reason of my presence in the north country;
for my quest had indeed been eclipsed by the fearful events of the past
week. I signalled the rowers to go without him, waved a last farewell to
Frances Sutherland, and turned to see Louis Laplante throw himself on
the grass and cry like a schoolboy. Dismounting I knelt beside him.

"Cheer up, old boy," said I, with the usual vacuity of thought and
stupidity of expression at such times. "Cheer up! Seven Oaks has knocked
you out. I knew you shouldn't make this trip till you were strong again.
Why, man, you have enough cuts to undo the pluck of a giant-killer!"

Louis was not paying the slightest attention to me. He was mumbling to
himself and I wondered if he were in a fever.

"The priest, the Irish priest in the fort, he say to me: 'Wicked fellow,
you be tortured forever and ever in the furnace, if you not undo what
you did in the gorge!' What care Louis Laplante for the fire? Pah! What
care Louis for wounds and cuts and threats? Pah! The fire not half so
hot as the hell inside! The cuts not half so sharp as the thinks that
prick and sting and lash from morn'g to night, night to morn'g! Pah!
Something inside say: 'Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, a dog! A cur!
Toad! Reptile!' Then I try stand up straight and give the lie, but it
say: 'Pah! Louis Laplante!' The Irish priest, he say, 'You repent!' What
care Louis for repents? Pah! But her eyes, they look and look and look
like two steel-gray stars! Sometime they caress and he want to pray!
Sometime they stab and he shiver; but they always shine like stars of
heaven and the priest, he say, 'You be shut out of heaven!' If the angel
all have stars, steel glittering stars, for eyes, heaven worth for
trying! The priest, he say, 'You go to abode of torture!' Torture! Pah!
More torture than 'nough here. Angels with stars in their heads, more
better. But the stars stab through--through--through----"

"Bother the stars," said I to myself. "What of Miriam?" I asked,
interrupting his penitential confidences.

His