opened on the
bay. The rippling full river had already begun to subside and sink line
by line from its island.

Van Corlaer gave no attention to the beautiful world. He listened to
Madame La Tour with a broadening humorous face and the invincible port
of a man who knows nothing of defeat. The sentinel trod back and forth
without disturbing this intent conference, but other feet came rushing
up the stone steps which let from Marie's room to the level of the wall.

"Madame--madame!" exclaimed Antonia Bronck; but her flaxen head was
arrested in ascent beside Van Corlaer's feet, and her distressed eyes
met in his a whimsical look which stung her through with suspicion and
resentment.

VIII.

VAN CORLAER.

"What is it, Antonia?" demanded Marie.

"Madame, it is nothing."

Antonia owned her suitor's baring of his head, and turned upon the
stairs.

"But some alarm drove you out."

Marie leaned over the cell inclosing the stone steps. It was not easy to
judge from Antonia's erect bearing what had so startled her. Her friend
followed her to the door below, and the voices of the two women hummed
indistinctly in that vault-like hollow.

"You have told him," accused Antonia directly. "He is laughing about
Mynheer Bronck's hand!"

"He does take a cheerful view of the matter," conceded the lady of the
fort. Antonia looked at her with all the asperity which could be
expressed in a fair Dutch face.

"As long as I kept my trouble to myself I could bear it. But I show it
to another, and the worst befalls me."

"Is that hand lost, Antonia?"

"I cannot find it, or even the box which held it."

"Never accuse me with your eye," said Marie with droll pathos. "If it
were lost or destroyed by accident, I could bear without a groan to see
you so bereaved. But the slightest thing shall not be filched in Fort
St. John. When did you first miss it?"

"A half hour since. I left the box on my table last night instead of
replacing it in my chest;--being so disturbed."

"Every room shall be searched," said Marie. "Where is Le Rossignol?"

"She went after breakfast to call her swan in the fort."

"I saw her not. And I have neglected to send her to the turret for her
punishment. That little creature has a magpie's fondness for plunder.
Perhaps she has carried off your box. I will send for her."

Marie left the room. Antonia lingered to glance through a small square
pane in the door--an eye which the commandants of the for