t kept on their
battlements. It had an inner tapestry, but this remained as Marie had
pushed it aside that morning to take her early look at the walls. Van
Corlaer was waiting on the steps, and as he detected Antonia in the
guilty act of peeping at him, his compelling voice reached her in Dutch.
She returned into the small stone cell formed by the stairs, and closed
the door, submitting defiantly to the interview.

"Will you sit here?" suggested Van Corlaer, taking off his cloak and
making for her a cushion upon the stone. Antonia reflected that he would
be chilly and therefore hold brief talk, so she made no objection, and
sat down on one end of the step while he sat down on the other. They
spoke Dutch: with their formal French fell away the formal phases of
this meeting in Acadia. The sentinel's walk moved almost overhead, and
died away along the wall and returned again, but noises within the fort
scarcely intruded to their rocky cell. They did not hear even the voices
of Lalande and Father Jogues descending the ladder.

"We have never had any satisfactory talk together, Antonia," began Van
Corlaer.

"No, mynheer," breathed the girlish relict of Bronck, feeling her heart
labor as she faced his eyes.

"It is hard for a man to speak his mind to you."

"It hath seemed easy enough for Mynheer Van Corlaer, seeing how many
times he hath done so," observed Antonia, drawing her mufflings around
her neck.

"No. I speak always with such folly that you will not hear me. It is not
so when I talk among men or work on the minds of savages. Let us now
begin reasonably. I do believe you like me, Antonia."

"A most reasonable beginning," noted Antonia, biting her lips.

"Now I am a man in the stress and fury of mid-life, hard to turn from my
purpose, and you well know my purpose. Your denials and puttings-off and
flights have pleased me. But your own safety may waste no more good time
in further play. I have not come into Acadia to tinkle a song under your
window, but to wed you and carry you back to Fort Orange with me."

Antonia stirred, to hide her trembling.

"Are you cold?" inquired Van Corlaer.

"No, mynheer."

"If the air chills you I will warm your hands in mine."

"My hands are well muffled, mynheer."

He adjusted his back against the wall and again opened the conversation.

"I brought a young dominie with me. He wished to see Montreal. And I
took care to have with him such papers as might be necessary to th