divided hearth, monsieur."

She had made her long speech with breaks, but I had not interrupted
her. And now that she had finished I did not speak till she looked at
me in wonder.

"I am thinking. I see that it comes to this, madame. I must renounce
either my work or my wife."

She suddenly stretched out her hand. "Oh, I would not have you
renounce your work, monsieur!"

A chair stood in front of her, and I brushed it away and let it clatter
on the floor.

"Mary! Mary, you love me!"

"No, no!" she cried. "No, monsieur, it need not mean I love you,--it
need not." She fled from me and placed a table between us. "Surely a
woman can understand a man's power, and glory in it--yes, glory in it,
monsieur--without loving the man!"

"But if you did love me,--if you did love me, what then?"

"Oh, monsieur, the misery of it for us if we loved! I have seen it
from the beginning, though at times I forgot. For there is nothing for
us but to part."

"Many women have forgotten country for their husbands. The world has
called them wise."

She put out her hand. "Not in my family, monsieur."

And then the face of Lord Starling came before me. "You have changed
from the woman of the wilderness. You changed when you put on this
gown. You were different even three days ago. Some influence has
worked on you here."

She understood me. "Yes, my cousin has talked to me. Yet I think that
I am not echoing him, monsieur. If I have hardened in the last few
days, it is because I have come to see the inevitableness of what I am
saying now. I have grasped the terrible significance of what is
happening. May I ask you some questions?"

"Yes, Mary."

"Oh, you must not---- The Seneca messengers, you will let them go back
and rejoin their camp?"

"We can do nothing else."

"And you will follow them, and attack them at La Baye?"

"So we plan."

"But the Senecas trust you."

"Not for a moment. They think we fear their power over the Hurons,--as
we do,--so they are reckless. They are undoubtedly carrying peace
belts from our Hurons to the Iroquois and the English. We must
intercept them."

She tried to ward my words, and all that they stood for, away. "You
see! You see!" she cried, "we must part. We must part while we can.
Monsieur, say no more. I beg you, monsieur." And she dropped in a
chair by the table and laid her head in her arms.

I could say nothing. I stood helpless and dizzy. I had asked