sailors and the creak of the windlass showed the anchor was being
raised. Before they had reached Gouverneur's house she was under way,
with papers destined to make trouble for many.

As Rene lay at rest that night within the curtained bed, no man on
Manhattan Island could have been more agreeably at ease with his world.
The worry of indecision was over. He felt with honest conviction that
his prayer for the downfall of his enemy had been answered, and in this
cooler hour he knew with gratitude that his brute will to kill had been
wisely denied its desire. It had seemed to him at the time that to act
on his instinct was only to do swift justice on a criminal; but he had
been given a day to reflect and acknowledged the saner wisdom of the
morrow.

Further thought should have left him less well pleased at what the
future might hold for him. But the despatch had gone, his errand was
done. An image of Margaret in the splendor of brocade and lace haunted
the dreamy interval between the waking state and the wholesome sleep of
tired youth. Moreover, the good merchant's Madeira had its power of
somnolent charm, and, thus soothed, De Courval passed into a world of
visionless slumber.

He rode back through the Jerseys to avoid Bristol and the scene of his
encounter, and, finding at Camden a flat barge returning to
Philadelphia, was able, as the river was open and free of ice, to get
his horse aboard and thus to return with some renewal of anxiety to Mrs.
Swanwick's house. No one was at home; but Nanny told him that Mr.
Schmidt, who had been absent, had returned two days before, but was out.
Miss Margaret was at the Hill, and June, the cat, off for two days on
love-affairs or predatory business.

He went up-stairs to see his mother. Should he tell her? On the whole,
it was better not to speak until he had seen Schmidt. He amused her with
an account of having been sent to New York on business and then spoke of
the Gouverneur family and their Huguenot descent. He went away satisfied
that he had left her at ease, which was not quite the case. "Something
has happened," she said to herself. "By and by he will tell me. Is it
the girl? I trust not. Or that man? Hardly."

The supper passed in quiet, with light talk of familiar things, the
vicomtesse, always a taciturn woman, saying but little.

As De Courval sat down, her black dress, the silvery quiet of Mrs.
Swanwick's garb, her notably gentle voice, the simple room without
color