though my soul, if you could see
it, would show wanting no part of honour's fair proportions. Hear
me, then, patiently, for I plead less for my own defence than for
her vindication who has just retired beneath your frown."

And the ingenuous but compromised Montigny sketched the brief
history of his passion, and when he had done, the advocate, looking
into his countenance keenly, but confidingly, rejoined:

"You speak the truth, I know it by your eye, wherein no falsehood
might harbour for a moment; yet, young seigneur, you have entered
on a perilous path; dare you walk in it? It is the way of honor,
and will prove to be the way of safety; but, beshrew me, if I do
not fear that it may prove to you a way of pain. Whatever may be
the ways of wisdom, the ways of honour are not always ways of
pleasantness, nor is the path of duty always one of peace. If you
would wear the rose you must grasp it as it grows amidst the thorns.
And now, farewell--yet, hold. I hold you to your bond. The forfeit
were the forfeit of your word, which you have pledged to me and
mine. Remember, not only have you offered love unto my ward, but
you have been accepted."

"Even so:" exclaimed Montigny; "and may--"

"Call nothing down that might become your harm," said the advocate
admonishingly: "Rain has before now become transformed to hailstones,
and done much damage; and dews descending so benignly, have once,
it is said, in form of rain, swelled to a deluge that has drowned
the world. May the skies be still propitious to you, Claude Montigny.
Although temptation burn as fiercely as dogdays, do not fall beneath
it, for less hurtful were a hundred sunstrokes to the body, than
to the soul is one temptation that hath overcome it. Again farewell."
And he pressed Claude's hand convulsively, then tossed it from him
half disdainfully, and both departed from the grounds.

CHAPTER VIII.

"Think no more of this night's accidents."

_Midsummer Night's Dream._

From Stillyside Claude Montigny rode towards the western extremity
of the island; his thoughts steeped in bliss, and the country, as
it slumbered in the moonlight, seeming to him the land of Elysium.
At the ferry of Pointe Saint Claire he engaged a bateau in which
he was rowed over the confluence of the rivers Ottawa and Saint
Lawrence by four boatmen who, from time to time, in a low tone, as
if afraid of awakening the dawn, chaunted, now an old song of
Normandy, and now a ballad u