unusual, and it brings troubling memories to my mind."

The woman deliberated a moment. She was indeed a woman with wit that
did not need mine, and I felt it to be so, and I stood at one side, and
thought out my own conclusions. She looked up. "At Meudon?" she
suggested to the priest.

He smote his palms together. "I am old," he mourned. "Else I could
never have forgotten. At Meudon, of course. It was at a meeting of
Jacobites. An exile named Starling--he was a commanding man, my
daughter--was their leader. How did you know?"

She stood there in her Indian dress of skins with a forest around her
and talked of courts.

"I remembered that you were in Paris three years ago," she explained,
"and that our king--yes, our king, Father Nouvel, although a king in
exile--talked sometimes with you. There was often one of your order at
the meetings at Meudon."

The father looked at her. "I could almost think that age and
loneliness have undone my mind," he said slowly. "You talk of kings
and courtiers. Who are you?"

I waited, perhaps more eagerly than the priest himself, for her reply.
None came. I thought she gave a flitting look toward me, and so I
shrugged my shoulders and thrust myself again into the priest's thought.

"If we were kings, courtiers, and Jacobites all in one," I said as
airily as might be in view of my aching muscles, "the titles would yet
clink dully as leaden coins, travel-worn as we are. Can you marry us
this evening, Father Nouvel?"

He looked at me keenly, not altogether pleased. "And you are"--he
asked.

"Armand de Montlivet, from Montreal."

He relaxed somewhat. "I have heard of you. No, I cannot marry you
to-night. I will find a lodge for this demoiselle, and we will talk of
this to-morrow. Come now and let me bring you to the chief," and with
a beckoning of the hand he led the way into the lodge behind him.

We followed closely. The lodge was large, and was roofed and floored
with rush mats. The smoke hung in a cloud over our heads, but the air
around us was sufficiently clear for us to see,--though with some
rubbing of the eyes. An aged Indian sat close to the blaze, and Father
Nouvel walked over to him.

"Onanguisse," he said, "two strangers lift the mat before your
door,--strangers with white faces. Do you bid them take broth and
shelter?"

The old chief nodded. He had lacked curiosity to look out at us while
we had stood talking before his door, and now he