e. And when the priest had told me all the
news at large, we came again to speak of Margery.

"I go and come through all this borderland," he said, when I had asked
him how and why he came to Appleby Hundred, "but it was mam'selle's
message brought me here. She is my one ewe lamb in all this region, and
I would journey far to see her."

I wondered pointedly at this, for in that day the West was fiercely
Protestant and the Mother Church had scanty footing in the borderland.

"But Mistress Margery is not a Catholic!" said I.

His look forgave the protest in the words.

"Indeed, she is, my son. Has she not told you?"

Now truly she had not told me so in any measured word or phrase; and yet
I might have guessed it, since she had often spoken lovingly of this
same Father Matthieu. And yet it was incredible to me.

"But how--I do not understand how that can be," I stammered. "Surely,
she told me she was of Huguenot blood on the mother's side, and that
is--"

The missionary's smile was lenient still, but full of meaning.

"Not all who wander from the Catholic fold are lost forever, Captain
Ireton. The mother of this demoiselle lived all her life a Protestant, I
think, but when she came to die she sent for me. And that is how her
child was sent to France and grew up convent-bred. Monsieur Stair gave
his promise at the mother's death-bed, and though he liked it not, he
kept it."

"Aha, I see. And for this single lamb of your scant fold you brave the
terrors of our heretic backwoods? It does you credit, Father Matthieu.
The war fills all horizons now, mayhap, but I have seen the time in
Mecklenburg when your cassock would have been a challenge to the mob."

His smile was quite devoid of bitterness. "The time has not yet passed,"
he said, gently. "I have been six weeks on the way from Maryland hither,
hiding in the forest by day and faring on at night. Indeed, I was in
hiding on a neighboring plantation when our demoiselle's messenger found
me."

This put me keen upon remembering what had gone before; how he had said
at first that she had sent for him. I thought it strange, knowing how
perilous the time and place must be for such as he. But not until he
rose and, bidding me good day, left me to myself, did I so much as guess
the thing his coming meant. When I had guessed it; when I put this to
that--her telling me Sir Francis had proposed for her, and this her
sending for the priest--the madness of my love for her wa