ted in
this wilderness because I had hoped to secure your happiness by my
exile. To-day I have seen every hope of my advancement vanish; that
I can take as one of the chances of war--but what have I left if
I lose you now? You are the whole world to me, and all it can offer
is nothing, if it does not include you. Margaret, my love! Call
back the day when, if I could have spoken, love waited in your
heart to answer. Give me a single hour of that past now! a moment
of the old love in which to plead for your life as well as my own."

Her colour came and went as I spake; she had visibly lost that
control which had so far baffled me, and when she answered, it was
with the familiar name she had not uttered, save when she had been
surprised into it on our first meeting.

"Oh, Hugh, do not try me. You know not what I have gone through,
and now I am near to God."

"Margaret, my darling, you will be nearer God when you are beside
the man to whom He would confide you. You know I love you with
all my soul! How can you look for happiness apart from him whom
you have loved so long, and whom you love even now!" I ended,
determined to risk the utmost. "Come to me, Margaret! Come to me!
We will face life together, and together there will be no room for
further doubtings, for further mistakes! I cannot shape my love
into words. It is all my life, all my being, and yet it is a poor
thing to offer you."

"Oh, Hugh, I know not which way to turn."

"Turn to me, Margaret! Turn to me! If ever a man needed a good
woman's love, I need yours now. Everything is falling about me. I
may have no right to ask, but I cannot help it. My need is greater
than my strength. Am I to go forth into exile again without
you-Margaret?"

"Hugh, my only love!" she cried, in a voice vibrant with tenderness;
and with the words she extended to me her trembling, upturned hands.
In my eyes it seemed as though they held all the priceless treasure
of her enduring love.

For a few days longer the cannon continued to grumble backward and
forward between wall and trench, until the arrival of the _Vanguard_,
_Diana_, and _Lawrence_ placed matters beyond a peradventure.
Thereupon M. de Levis promptly disbanded his Canadians, and during
the night of the 16th, under a searching fire from the ramparts,
he withdrew from his lines, and fell back upon Deschambault.

The siege was at an end. Within the town officers and men rejoiced
in their escape from incessant duty, an