silky furs, which Quebec
women delighted in. She groomed herself carefully each day for
that approach to the English camp at Point Levi which the tide
accomplished. Her features could be distinguished half a mile. On the
days when Colonel Fraser's fezlike plumed bonnet was lifted to her in
the camp, she went up the river again in a trance of quiet. On other
days the habitantes laughed, and said to one another, "Mademoiselle
will certainly break through the deck with her tramping."

There was a general restlessness on the prison ship. The English
sailors wanted to go home. The Canadians had been patient since the
middle of August. But this particular September night, as they drifted
up past the rock, and saw the defenses of their country bristling
against them, the feeling of homesickness vented itself in complaints.
Jeannette was in her cabin, and heard them abuse Colonel Fraser and
his Highlanders as kidnapers of women and children, and burners of
churches. She came out of her retreat, and hovered over them like a
hawk. The men pulled their caps off, drolly grinning.

"It is true," added one of them, "that General Montcalm is to blame
for letting the parishes burn. And at least he might take us away from
the English."

"Do you think Monsieur de Montcalm has nothing to do but bring you in
off the river?" demanded Jeannette.

"Mademoiselle does not want to be brought in," retorted one of the
women. "As for us, we are not in love with these officers who wear
petticoats, or with any of our enemies."

"Spawn!" Jeanette hurled at them. Yet her partisan fury died in her
throat. She went up on deck to be away from her accusers. The seamed
precipice, the indented cove with the child's figure standing at the
top, and all the panorama to which she was so accustomed by morning
light or twilight passed before her without being seen by her fierce
red-rimmed eyes.

Jeannette Descheneaux had walked through the midst of colonial
intrigues without knowing that they existed. Men she ignored; and she
could not now account for her keen knowledge that there was a colonel
of the Seventy-Eighth Highlanders. Her entanglement had taken her in
the very simplicity of childhood. She could not blame him. He had
done nothing but lift his bonnet to her, and treat her with deference
because he was sorry she had fallen into his hands. But at first she
fought with silent fury the power he unconsciously held over her. She
felt only the shame of