and her sense of what so hideous a
wrong as her husband's murder should exact from his son.

"I have something to tell you, _maman_," he said; "and before I go, it
is well that I should tell you."

"Well, what is it?" she said coldly, and then, as before, uneasily
anxious.

"On the twenty-ninth of November I learned that Carteaux had started for
New York an hour before I heard of it, on his way to France. I had
waited long--undecided, fearing that again some evil chance might leave
you alone in a strange land."

"You did wrong, Rene. There are duties which ought to permit of no such
indecision. You should not have considered me for a moment. Go on."

"How could I help it, thinking of you, mother? I followed, and overtook
this man near Bristol. I meant no chance with the sword this time. He
was unarmed. I gave him the choice of my pistols, bade him pace the
distance, and give the word. He walked away some six feet, half the
distance, and, turning suddenly, fired, grazing my shoulder. I shot
him--ah, a terrible wound in arm and shoulder. Schmidt had found a note
I left for him, and, missing his pistols, inquired at the French
legation, and came up in time to see it all and to prevent me from
killing the man."

"Pre--vent you! How did he dare!"

"Yes, mother; and it was well. Schmidt found, when binding up his wound,
that he was carrying despatches from the Republican Minister Fauchet to
go by the corvette _Jean Bart_, waiting in New York Harbor."

"What difference did that make?"

"Why, mother, I am in the State Department. To have killed a member of
the French legation, or stopped his journey, would have been ruin to me
and a weapon in the hands of these mock Jacobins."

"But you did stop him."

"Yes; but I delivered the despatch myself to the corvette."

"Yes, you were right; but what next? He must have spoken."

"No. The threat from Schmidt that he would tell the whole story of
Avignon and his treachery to me has made him lie and say he had been set
upon by unknown persons and robbed of his papers. He has wisely held his
tongue. He is crippled for life and has suffered horribly. Now he goes
to France a broken, miserable man, punished as death's release could not
punish."

"I do not know that. I have faith in the vengeance of God. You should
have killed him. You did not. And so I suppose there is an end of it for
a time. Is that all, Rene?"

"Yes, that is all. The loss of the despatch remains a myste