rg," he answered, somewhat coldly,
as if my earnestness had hurt him.

"But you do not mean that he may be married?"

"He may be. It would surely not be unnatural."

"It might not in another man, but in him it would be impossible.
He is not as other men."

"May I inquire, my daughter, if he ever asked you in marriage?"

"No, my father; I told you how he was situate. Besides, my guardian
then wished me to marry another."

"And you would not?"

"I did not," I answered, with some little hauteur, for I held this
was beside the matter, and a subject on which even he had no right
to question me.

"Well, that can make but little difference now," he said, after a
short pause. "What does make the difference is that Louisbourg is
an impossibility for you at the present. Your best course is to go
on to Quebec. I shall give you letters to M. de Montcalm, who is
so old and intimate a friend that I may ask him any favour. He will
see that you have passage in the first fitting vessel for France.
In order that you may not be subject to embarrassing surmises, I
hold your best plan is to continue to style yourself Mme. de St.
Just; in fact, that has now become a necessity. Once in France,
you can, with the influence at your command--for I will see that
M. de Montcalm furthers your desire--procure the recall of M. de
Maxwell in the spring, and so realise the dream which has now led
you so far astray.

"Do not think I am blaming you overmuch," he added, quickly; "you
have been led astray because you could not see as the world sees.
Your heart and motive were pure, were generous, but none the less
are you subject to those rules which govern so rigorously the class
to which you belong, whose very existence depends on their observance.
In a romance, the world would no doubt have wept over your
perplexities; but in real life, it would crush you, because you
have sinned against the only code it acknowledges. Your purity and
faithfulness would count for nothing. Believe me, my child, I know
it and its ways."

So it was decided; and at once I began to plan with new hope for
the desire of my heart; and such was the change it wrought in me
that the whole world took on a new interest to my eyes.

For the first time I realised the grandeur of the river into which
we had now fully entered; the sullen sweep of black water in the
depths, the dance of silver over the shallows, the race of waves
down the rapids between its ever-changing ba