ve my orders."

"Nonsense. This is the Governor's house. I am perfectly safe here. Give
your orders a change of scene. You would better enjoy the refreshing
coolness of the corridors this morning. You won't? Oh, yes, you will.
Here's a cigarette--there, take the whole bunch--I paid too much for
them, but no matter. Ah, pardon me, mademoiselle. I forgot that you
cannot smoke here, Roupet; but you shall have them all the same, there!
Parbleu! you are a handsome rascal, if you weren't so wheezy! Come,
come, Roupet, make yourself invisible."

The eyes of the girl were on the soldier. They did the work better; a
warrior has a soft place in his heart for a beautiful woman. He wheeled
suddenly, and disappeared from the room, motioning that he would remain
at the door.

The painting began, and for half an hour or more was continued without a
word. In the silence the placid Angers had fallen asleep.

Nodding slightly towards her, Rive Laflamme said in a low voice to
Marie: "Her hearing at its best is not remarkable?"

"Not remarkable."

He spoke more softly. "That is good. Well, the portrait is done. It has
been the triumph of my life to paint it. Not that first joy I had when
I won the great prize in Paris equals it. I am glad: and yet--and yet
there was much chance that it would never be finished."

"Why?"

"Carbourd is gone."

"Yes, I know-well?"

"Well, I should be gone also were it not for this portrait. The chance
came. I was tempted. I determined to finish this. I stayed."

"Do you think that he will be caught?"

"Not alive. Carbourd has suffered too much--the galleys, the corde,
the triangle, everything but the guillotine. Carbourd has a wife and
children--ah, yes, you know all about it. You remember that letter she
sent: I can recall every word; can you?"

The girl paused, and then with a rapt sympathy in her face repeated
slowly: "I am ill, and our children cry for food. The wife calls to her
husband, my darlings say, 'Will father never come home?'"

Marie's eyes were moist.

"Mademoiselle, he was no common criminal. He would have died for the
cause grandly. He loved France too wildly. That was his sin."

"Carbourd is free," she said, as though to herself.

"He has escaped." His voice was the smallest whisper. "And now my time
has come."

"When? And where do you go?"

"To-night, and to join Carbourd, if I can, at the Pascal River. At King
Ovi's Cave, if possible."

The girl was very pale. She