wall!"

She threw herself against the settle and shook with weeping. It was the
revolt of womanhood. The soldier hung his head. It relieved him to
declare savagely,--

"Klussman hath his pay. D'Aulnay's followers have just hanged him below
the fort."

"Hanged him! Hanged poor Klussman? Edelwald, I cannot have
Klussman--hanged!"

Le Rossignol had stopped her mandolin, and the children clustered near
Edelwald waiting for his notice. One of them now ran with the news to
her.

"Klussman is hanged," she repeated, changing her position on the table
and laying the mandolin down. "Faith, we are never satisfied with our
good. I am in a rage now because they hanged not the woman in his
stead."

Marie wiped off her tears. The black rings of sleeplessness around her
eyes emphasized her loss of color, but she was beautiful.

"How foolish doth weariness make a woman! I expected no help from
Denys--yet rested my last hope on it. You must eat, Edelwald. By your
dress and the alarm raised you have come into the fort through danger
and effort."

"My lady, if, you will permit me first to go to my room, I will find
something which sorts better with a soldier than this churchman's gown.
My buckskin, I was obliged to mutilate to make me a proper friar."

"Go, assuredly. But I know not what rubbish the cannon of D'Aulnay have
battered down in your room. The monk's frock will scarce feel lonesome
in that part of our tower now: we have had two Jesuits to lodge there
since you left."

"Did they carry away Madame Bronck? I do not see her among your women."

"She is fortunate, Edelwald. A man loved her, and traveled hither from
the Orange settlement. They were wed five days ago, and set out with the
Jesuits to Montreal."

Marie did not lift her heavy eyelids while she spoke, and anguish passed
unseen across Edelwald's face. Whoever was loved and fortunate, he stood
outside of such experience. He was young, but there was to be no wooing
for him in the world, however long war might spare him. The women of the
fort waited with their children for his notice. His stirring to turn
toward them rustled a paper under his capote.

"My lady," he said pausing, "D'Aulnay had me in his camp and gave me
dispatches to you."

"You were there in this friar's dress?"

Marie looked sincerely the pride she took in his simple courage.

"Yes, my lady, though much against my will. I was obliged to knock down
a reverend shaveling and strip him. But t