Now you are safe, madam,
I will leave you."

She burst into tears. "Why do you treat me thus, Mr. North? What have I
done to make you hate me?"

"Hate you!" said North, with trembling lips. "Oh, no, I do not--do not
hate you. I am rude in my speech, abrupt in my manner. You must forget
it, and--and me." A horse's feet crashed upon the gravel, and an instant
after Maurice Frere burst into the room. Returning from the Cascades, he
had met Troke, and learned the release of the prisoner. Furious at this
usurpation of authority by his wife, his self-esteem wounded by the
thought that she had witnessed his mean revenge upon the man he had so
infamously wronged, and his natural brutality enhanced by brandy, he had
made for the house at full gallop, determined to assert his authority.
Blind with rage, he saw no one but his wife. "What the devil's this
I hear? You have been meddling in my business! You release prisoners!
You--"

"Captain Frere!" said North, stepping forward to assert the restraining
presence of a stranger. Frere started, astonished at the intrusion of
the chaplain. Here was another outrage of his dignity, another insult to
his supreme authority. In its passion, his gross mind leapt to the worst
conclusion. "You here, too! What do you want here--with my wife! This is
your quarrel, is it?" His eyes glanced wrathfully from one to the other;
and he strode towards North. "You infernal hypocritical lying scoundrel,
if it wasn't for your black coat, I'd--"

"Maurice!" cried Sylvia, in an agony of shame and terror, striving
to place a restraining hand upon his arm. He turned upon her with so
fiercely infamous a curse that North, pale with righteous rage, seemed
prompted to strike the burly ruffian to the earth. For a moment, the
two men faced each other, and then Frere, muttering threats of vengeance
against each and all--convicts, gaolers, wife, and priest--flung the
suppliant woman violently from him, and rushed from the room. She fell
heavily against the wall, and as the chaplain raised her, he heard the
hoof-strokes of the departing horse.

"Oh," cried Sylvia, covering her face with trembling hands, "let me
leave this place!"

North, enfolding her in his arms, strove to soothe her with incoherent
words of comfort. Dizzy with the blow she had received, she clung to him
sobbing. Twice he tried to tear himself away, but had he loosed his hold
she would have fallen. He could not hold her--bruised, suffering, and