,
Monsieur."

"And what do you expect me to do for his sake, Madame?"

"What humanity would suggest. Ah, I know what you would say: he tried to
kill you; he made you fight him. But, Monsieur, he has repented of that.
He is ill, he is--crippled, he cherishes the Seigneury beyond its worth
a thousand times."

"He cherishes it at my expense. So, you must not disturb the man who
robs you of house and land, and tries to murder you, lest he should be
disturbed and not sleep o' nights. Come, Madame, that is too thin."

"He might kill you, but he would not rob you, Monsieur. Do you think
that if he knew that will existed, he would be now at the Seigneury, or
I here? I know you hate Louis Racine."

"With ample reason."

"You hate him more because he defeated you than because he once tried to
kill you. Oh, I do not know the rights or wrongs of that great case at
law; I only know that Louis Racine was not the judge or jury, but the
avocat only, whose duty it was to do as he did. That he did it the more
gladly because he was a Frenchman and you an Englishman, is not his
fault or yours either. Louis Racine's people came here two hundred years
ago, yours not sixty years ago. You, the great business man, have had
practical power which gave you riches. You have sacrificed all for
power. Louis Racine has only genius, and no practical power."

"A dangerous fanatic and dreamer," he interjected. "A dreamer, if you
will, with no practical power, for he never thought of himself, and
'practical power' is usually all self. He dreamed--he gave his heart
and soul up for ideas. Englishmen do not understand that. Do you not
know--you do know--that, had he chosen, he might have been rich too, for
his brains would have been of great use to men of practical power like
yourself."

She paused; Fournel did not answer, but sat as though reading the will
intently.

"Was it strange that he should dream of a French sovereign state here,
where his people came and first possessed the land? Can you wonder that
this dreamer, when the Seigneury of Pontiac came to him, felt as if a
new life were opened up to him, and saw a way to some of his ambitions.
They were sad, mistaken ambitions, doomed to failure, but they were
also his very heart, which he would empty out gladly for an idea. The
Seigneury of Pontiac came to him, and I married him."

"Evidently bent upon wrecking the chances of a great career,"
interrupted Fournel over the paper.

"But no;