y in extreme
calm, her clay-colored eyelids shut on a clay-colored face. Marie was
used to these quiet lapses of her mother-in-law, for Lady Dorinda had
not been a good sailor on their voyage; but Antonia was alarmed. They
bathed her face with a few inches of towel dipped in scented water, and
rubbed her hands and fanned her. She caught life in again with a gasp,
and opened her eyes to their young faces.

"Your ladyship attempted too much in opening that box," said Marie. "It
is not good to go back through old sorrows."

"Madame La Tour may be right," gasped Claude's widow.

"I could not now look at that gown, Lady Dorinda," protested Antonia.
When her ladyship was able to sit again by the fire, she asked both of
them to leave her; and being alone, she quieted her anxiety about her
treasures in the chest by a forced search. Nothing had been disturbed.
The coals burned down red while Lady Dorinda tried to understand this
happening. She dismissed all thought of the casket's belonging to
Antonia Bronck;--a mild and stiff-mannered young provincial who had
nothing to do with ghastly tokens of war. That hand was a political
hint, mysteriously sent to Lady Dorinda and embodying some important
message.

D'Aulnay de Charnisay may have sent it as a pledge that he intended to
do justice to the elder La Tour while chastising the younger. There was
a strange girl in the fort, accused of coming from D'Aulnay. Lady
Dorinda could feel no enmity towards D'Aulnay. Her mind swarmed with
foolish thoughts, harmless because ineffectual. She felt her importance
grow, and was sure that the seed of a deep political intrigue lay hidden
in her chest.

XI.

MARGUERITE.

The days which elapsed before Antonia Bronck's marriage were lived
joyfully by a people who lost care in any festival. Van Corlaer brought
the sleek-faced young dominie from camp and exhibited him in all his
potency as the means of a Protestant marriage service. He could not
speak a word of French, but only Dutch was required of him. All
religious rites were celebrated in the hall, there being no chapel in
Fort St. John, and this marriage was to be witnessed by the garrison.

During this cheerful time a burning unrest, which she concealed from her
people, drove Marie about her domain. She fled up the turret stairs and
stood on the cannon to look over the bay. Her husband had been away but
eight days. "Yet he often makes swift journeys," she thought. The load
of h