XLIII. BACK AT EAUX TRANQUILLES

XLIV. SELF-DEFENCE

XLV. THE NECESSITIES OF CONDITION

XLVI. THE PATRIOTS

XLVII. THE DEFENCE OF THE BODYGUARD

XLVIII. SISTERS DEATH AND TRUTH

XLIX. CIVIC VIRTUE

L. JUDGMENT DAY

LI. LOVE ENDURETH ALL THINGS

LII. THE SUPREME EXACTITUDE

LIII. RETRIBUTION ACCOMPLISHED

PREFATORY NOTE

This story is founded on a packet of worm-eaten letters and documents
found in an old French-Canadian house on the banks of the St. Lawrence.
The romance they rudely outline, its intrigues, its brilliancy of
surroundings, its intensity of feelings, when given the necessary
touches of history and imagination, so fascinated the writer that the
result was the present book. A packet of documents of course is not a
novel, and the reader may be able to guess what is mine and what is
likely to have been the scanty limit of the original hint.

The student of history will recognise my debt to many authorities; among
whom the chief are Paul Lacroix and Taine. I wish it distinctly
understood that the person attacked in the documents in question is not
the hero of this narrative.

W. D. L.

THE FALSE CHEVALIER

CHAPTER I

THE FUR-TRADER'S SON

The son of the merchant Lecour was a handsome youth, and there was great
joy in the family at his coming home to St. Elphege. For he was going to
France on the morrow; it was with that object that his father had sent
to town for him--the little walled town of Montreal.

It was evening, early in May, of the year 1786. According to an old
custom of the French-Canadians, the merchant, surrounded by his family,
was bestowing upon his son the paternal blessing. It was a touching
sight--the patriarchal ceremony of benediction.

The father was a fine type of the peasant. His features might, in the
strong chiaroscuro of the candle-light, have stood as model for some
church fresco of a St. Peter. His dress was of grey country homespun,
cut in a long coat, and girded by a many-coloured arrow-pattern sash,
and on his feet he wore a pair of well-worn beef-skin mocassins.

The son was some twenty years of age, and his mien and dress told of the
better social advantages of the town. Indeed, his costume, though
somewhat worn, had marks of good fashion.

His younger sister (for he had two, of whom one was absent), and his
mother, a lively, black-eyed woman, who dressed and bore herself
ambitiously for her station, gazed on him in fond prid