ing her, the dull boom of a
cannon came across the valley. "From Ducos," she said. "M. Laflamme has
escaped. God help us all!" And she turned and groped her way into the
room she had left.

She felt for a chair and sat down. She must think of what she now was.
She wondered if Carbourd was killed. She listened and thought not, since
there was no sound without. But she knew that the house would be roused.
She bowed her head in her hands. Surely she might weep a little for
herself--she who had been so troubled for others. It is strange, but she
thought of her flowers and birds, and wondered how she should tend them;
of her own room which faced the north--the English north that she loved
so well; of her horse, and marvelled if he would know that she could not
see him; and, lastly, of a widening horizon of pain, spread before the
eyes of her soul, in which her father and another moved.

It seemed to her that she sat there for hours, it was in reality minutes
only. A firm step and the opening of a door roused her. She did not
turn her head--what need? She knew the step. There was almost a touch of
ironical smiling at her lips, as she thought how she must hear and feel
things only, in the future. A voice said: "Marie, are you here?"

"I am here."

"I'll strike a match so that you can see I'm not a bushranger. There has
been shooting in the grounds. Did you hear it?"

"Yes. A soldier firing at Carbourd."

"You saw him?"

"Yes. He could not find the Cave. I directed him. Immediately after he
was fired upon."

"He can't have been hit. There are no signs of him. There, that's
lighter and better, isn't it?"

"I do not know."

She had risen, but she did not turn towards him. He came nearer to her.
The enigmatical tone struck him strangely, but he could find nothing
less commonplace to say than: "You don't prefer the exaggerated
gloaming, do you?"

"No, I do not prefer the gloaming, but why should not one be patient?"

"Be patient!" he repeated, and came nearer still. "Are you hurt or
angry?"

"I am hurt, but not angry."

"What have I done?--or is it I?"

"It is not you. You are very good. It is nobody but God. I am hurt,
because He is angry, perhaps."

"Tell me what is the matter. Look at me." He faced her now-faced her
eyes, looking blindly straight before her.

"Hugh," she said, and she put her hand out slightly, not exactly to him,
but as if to protect him from the blow which she herself must deal: "I
am l