t not answer. I had no right to ask. Oh,
monsieur!" she added, "I would have you always for my friend if I could,
though you are the enemy of my country and of the man--I am to marry."

"I am for my king," he replied; "and I am enemy of him who stands
between you and me. For see: from the hour that I met you I knew that
some day, even as now, I should tell you that--I love you--indeed,
Jessica, with all my heart."

"Oh, have pity!" she pleaded. "I cannot listen--I cannot."

"You shall listen, for you have remembered me and have understood.
Voila!" he added, hastily catching her silver buckle from his bosom.
"This that you sent me, look where I have kept it--on my heart!"

She drew back from him, her face in her hands. Then suddenly she put
them out as though to prevent him coming near her, and said:

"Oh, no--no! You will spare me; I am an affianced wife." An appealing
smile shone through her tears. "Oh, will you not go?" she begged. "Or,
will you not stay and forget what you have said? We are little more than
strangers; I scarcely know you; I--"

"We are no strangers," he broke in. "How can that be, when for years I
have thought of you--you of me? But I am content to wait, for my love
shall win you yet. You--"

She came to him and put her hands upon his arm. "You remember," she
said, with a touch of her old gaiety, and with an inimitable grace,
"what good friends we were that first day we met? Let us be the same
now--for this time at least. Will you not grant me this for to-day?"

"And to-morrow?" he asked, inwardly determining to stay in the port of
New York and to carry her off as his wife; but, unlike Bucklaw, with her
consent.

At that moment the governor returned, and Iberville's question was never
answered. Nor did he dine at Government House, for word came secretly
that English ships were coming from Boston to capture him. He had,
therefore, no other resource but to sail out and push on for Quebec.
He would not peril the lives of his men merely to follow his will with
Jessica.

What might have occurred had he stayed is not easy to say--fortunes
turn on strange trifles. The girl, under the influence of his masterful
spirit and the rare charm of his manner, might have--as many another
has--broken her troth. As it was, she wrote Iberville a letter and sent
it by a courier, who never delivered it. By the same fatality, of the
letters which he wrote her only one was received. This told her that
when he re