nd she continued, "I can
trust your face, monsieur. I am sure it was only in fair fight.
But why should you think me afraid to touch _this_? Oh, why,
M. a Clive, will men take it so cruelly for granted that we women are
afraid of the thought of blood--nay, even that we owe it to ourselves
to be afraid? If we are what you all insist we should be, what right
have we to be born in these times? Think of New France fighting now
for dear life--ah! why should I ask _you_ to think, who have bled for
her? Yet you would have me shudder at the touch of a stained piece
of cloth; and while you hold these foolish prejudices, can you wonder
that New France has no Jeanne d'Arc? When I was at the Ursulines at
Quebec, they used to pray to her on this side of sainthood, and ask
for her intercession; but what they taught was needlework."

"The world has altered since her time, mademoiselle," said John,
falsely and lamely.

"Has it? It burnt her; even in those days it did its best according
to its lights," she answered bitterly. "Only in these days there are
no heroines to burn. No heroines . . . no fires . . . and even in
our needlework we must be demure, and not touch a garment that has
been touched with blood! Monsieur, was this man a coward?"
She lifted the tunic.

"He was a vain fellow and a bully, mademoiselle, but by no means a
coward."

"He fought for France?"

"Yes; and, I believe, with credit."

"Then, monsieur, because he was a bully, I commend the man who killed
him fairly. And because he was brave and fought for France, I am
proud to handle his tunic."

As John a Cleeve gazed at her kindled face, the one thought that rose
above his own shame was a thought that her earnestness marvellously
made her beautiful.

CHAPTER XV.

THE SECOND DISPATCH.

Dominique Guyon departed shortly before noon; and a week later half a
dozen _habitants_ arrived from Boisveyrac to work at the entrenchment
which the Commandant had already opened across Sans Quartier's
cabbage plot. The Commandant himself donned a blouse and dug with
the rest; and M. Etienne; and even old Jeremie Tripier, though
grumbling over his rheumatism almost as bitterly as Sans Quartier
over his wasted cabbages. Every one, in fact, toiled, and with a
will, at the King's _corvee_: every one, that is, except the women,
and John, and Menehwehna (whose Indian dignity revolted against
spade-work), and old Father Joly, the chaplain of the fort, who was
t