tuted for him
there. We all know the dauphin's physician died suddenly; some say he
was poisoned; and a new physician attended the boy who died in the
Temple. Of course the priest who received the child's confession should
have known a dauphin when he saw one. But that's neither here nor there.
We lived then in surprising times."

"Madame d'Angouleme would recognize him as her brother if she saw him?"
I suggested.

"I think she is not so open to tokens as at one time. Women's hearts are
tender. The Duchess d'Angouleme could never be convinced that her
brother died."

"But others, including her uncle, were convinced?"

"The Duke of Richemont was not. What do you yourself think, Monsieur
Williams?"

"I think that the man who is out is an infinite joke. He tickles the
whole world. People have a right to laugh at a man who cannot prove he
is what he says he is. The difference between a pretender and a usurper
is the difference between the top of the hill and the bottom."

The morning sun showed the white mortar ribs of my homestead clean and
fair betwixt hewed logs; and brightened the inside of the entrance or
hall room. For I saw the door stood open. It had been left unfastened
but not ajar. Somebody was in the house.

I told Abbe Edgeworth we would dismount and tie our horses a little
distance away. And I asked him to wait outside and let me enter alone.

He obligingly sauntered on the hill overlooking the Fox; I stepped upon
the gallery and looked in.

The sweep of a gray dress showed in front of the settle. Eagle was
there. I stood still.

She had put on more wood. Fire crackled in the chimney. I saw, and
seemed to have known all night, that she had taken pieces of unbroken
bread and meat left by Pierre Grignon on my table; that her shoes were
cleaned and drying in front of the fire; that she must have carried her
dress above contact with the soft ground.

When I asked Abbe Edgeworth not to come in, her dread of strangers
influenced me less than a desire to protect her from his eyes, haggard
and draggled as she probably was. The instinct which made her keep her
body like a temple had not failed under the strong excitement that drove
her out. Whether she slept under a bush, or not at all, or took to the
house after Pierre Grignon and I left it, she was resting quietly on the
settle before the fireplace, without a stain of mud upon her.

I could see nothing but the foot of her dress. Had any change passed