sell his cottage on the outskirts of
Annapolis town, his scrap of upland with its apple trees in full
bearing, his strip of rich dike-land with its apple trees in full
bearing, his strip of rich dike-forbidden traffic--and to settle under
the walls of Louisburg, where the flag he loved should always wave over
his roof-tree. It was Mich' Masson who had shown Jean how by this
course he could quickly grow rich, and make a home for Barbe which that
somewhat disconcerting and incomprehensible maiden would not scorn to
accept. Mich' Masson loved his own honor. He loved Jean. He hated
the English. Jean's secret was safe with him.

Mademoiselle Barbe, under a disguise of indifference which sometimes
reduced Jean to the not unprofitable condition wherein hard work is the
sole refuge from despair, hid a passionate interest in her lover's
undertaking. She, too, hated the new domination. She, too, chafed to
escape from Annapolis and take up life anew under her old Flag of the
Fleur-de-lis. Moreover, her restless and fiery spirit could accept no
contented tiller of green Acadian acres for a mate; and she was
resolved that Jean's courageous heart and stirring dreams should
translate themselves into action. She would have him not only the
daring dreamer but the daring doer--the successful smuggler, the shrewd
foiler of the English watch-dogs, the admired and consulted partisan
leader. That he had it in him to be all these things she felt utterly
convinced; but she proposed that the debilitating effects of too much
happiness should have no chance of postponing his success. Her keen
watchfulness detected every weak spot in Jean's enterprise, every
unguarded point in his secret; and her two-edged mockery, which seemed
as careless and inconsequent as the wind, at once accomplished the
effects she had in view. Her fickleness of mood, her bewildering
caprice, were the iridescent foam-bubbles veiling a deep and steady
current. She knew that she loved Jean's love for her, of which she
felt as certain as dawn does of the sunrise. She had a suspicion in
the deep of her heart that she might be in love with Jean himself; but
of this she was in no haste to be assured. She was loyal in every
fibre. And Jean's secret was safe with her.

Thus the wonder came to pass that Jean's secret, though known to three
people, yet remained so long a secret. Had the English Governor,
behind his sodded ramparts overlooking the tide, got wind of