ils of
the plot to create a riot in the market-place that afternoon can only
be conjectured by the fact of her agreeing to ride out at the hour
designated, which she warmly consented to do as soon as De Pean informed
her that Le Gardeur would be there and might be expected to have a
hand in the tumult raised against the Golden Dog. The conference over,
Angelique speedily dismissed De Pean. She was in no mood for flirtation
with him. Her mind was taken up with the possibility of danger to Le
Gardeur in this plot, which she saw clearly was the work of others, and
not of himself, although he was expected to be a chief actor in it.

CHAPTER XLVIII. "IN GOLD CLASPS LOCKS IN THE GOLDEN STORY."

Love is like a bright river when it springs from the fresh fountains
of the heart. It flows on between fair and ever-widening banks until it
reaches the ocean of eternity and happiness.

The days illuminated with the brightest sunshine are those which smile
over the heads of a loving pair who have found each other, and with
tender confessions and mutual avowals plighted their troth and prepared
their little bark for sailing together down the changeful stream of
time.

So it had been through the long Indian summer days with Pierre Philibert
and Amelie de Repentigny. Since the blessed hour they plighted their
troth in the evening twilight upon the shore of the little lake of
Tilly, they had showed to each other, in the heart's confessional, the
treasures of true human affection, holy in the eyes of God and man.

When Amelie gave her love to Pierre, she gave it utterly and without a
scruple of reservation. It was so easy to love Pierre, so impossible not
to love him; nay, she remembered not the time it was otherwise, or when
he had not been first and last in her secret thoughts as he was now in
her chaste confessions, although whispered so low that her approving
angel hardly caught the sound as it passed into the ear of Pierre
Philibert.

A warm, soft wind blew gently down the little valley of the Lairet,
which wound and rippled over its glossy brown pebbles, murmuring a quiet
song down in its hollow bed. Tufts of spiry grass clung to its steep
banks, and a few wild flowers peeped out of nooks among the sere fallen
leaves that lay upon the still greensward on each shore of the little
rivulet.

Pierre and Amelie had been tempted by the beauty of the Indian summer
to dismount and send their horses forward to the city in charge