You put a slight upon an honest gentleman."

"I fear that neither Mr. Gering nor myself is too generous with each
other, your excellency," answered Iberville lightly.

This frankness was pleasing, and soon the governor took Iberville into
the drawing-room, where Jessica was. She was standing by the great
fireplace, and she did not move at first, but looked at Iberville in
some thing of her old simple way. Then she offered him her hand with a
quiet smile.

"I fear you are not glad to see me," he said, with a smile. "You cannot
have had good reports of me--no?"

"Yes, I am glad," she answered gently. "You know, monsieur, mine is a
constant debt. You do not come to me, I take it, as the conqueror of
Englishmen."

"I come to you," he answered, "as Pierre le Moyne of Iberville, who had
once the honour to do you slight service. I have never tried to forget
that, because by it I hoped I might be remembered--an accident of price
to me."

She bowed and at first did not speak; then Morris came to say that some
one awaited the governor, and the two were left alone.

"I have not forgotten," she began softly, breaking a silence.

"You will think me bold, but I believe you will never forget," was his
meaning reply.

"Yes, you are bold," she replied, with the demure smile which had
charmed him long ago. Suddenly she looked up at him anxiously, and, "Why
did you go to Hudson's Bay?" she asked.

"I would have gone ten times as far for the same cause," he answered,
and he looked boldly, earnestly, into her eyes.

She turned her head away. "You have all your old recklessness," she
answered. Then her eyes softened, and, "All your old courage," she
added.

"I have all my old motive."

"What is-your motive?"

Does a woman ever know how much such speeches cost? Did Jessica quite
know when she asked the question, what her own motive was; how much it
had of delicate malice--unless there was behind it a simple sincerity?
She was inviting sorrow. A man like Iberville was not to be counted
lightly; for every word he sowed, he would reap a harvest of some kind.

He came close to her, and looked as though he would read her through and
through. "Can you ask that question?" he said most seriously. "If you
ask it because from your soul you wish to know, good! But if you ask it
as a woman who would read a man's heart, and then--"

"Oh, hush!--hush!" she whispered. Her face became pale, and her eyes had
a painful brightness. "You mus