fetch my men to your kitchen, Duvarney? 'Tis raw outside."

"Surely. I shall see they have some comfort," was the reply.

Doltaire then left the room, and Duvarney came to me. "This is a bad
business, Moray," he said sadly. "There is some mistake, is there not?"

I looked him fair in the face. "There is a mistake," I answered. "I am
no spy, and I do not fear that I shall lose my life, my honour, or my
friends by offensive acts of mine."

"I believe you," he responded, "as I have believed since you came,
though there has been gabble of your doings. I do not forget you bought
my life back from those wild Mohawks five years ago. You have my hand in
trouble or out of it."

Upon my soul, I could have fallen on his neck, for the blow to our cause
and the shadow on my own fate oppressed me for the moment.

At this point the ladies left the room to make some little toilette
before dinner, and as they passed me the sleeve of Alixe's dress touched
my arm. I caught her fingers for an instant, and to this day I can feel
that warm, rich current of life coursing from finger-tips to heart. She
did not look at me at all, but passed on after her mother. Never till
that moment had there been any open show of heart between us. When I
first came to Quebec (I own it to my shame) I was inclined to use
her youthful friendship for private and patriotic ends; but that soon
passed, and then I wished her companionship for true love of her. Also,
I had been held back because when I first knew her she seemed but a
child. Yet how quickly and how wisely did she grow out of her childhood!
She had a playful wit, and her talents were far beyond her years. It
amazed me often to hear her sum up a thing in some pregnant sentence
which, when you came to think, was the one word to be said. She had such
a deep look out of her blue eyes that you scarcely glanced from them
to see the warm sweet colour of her face, the fair broad forehead, the
brown hair, the delicate richness of her lips, which ever were full
of humour and of seriousness--both running together, as you may see a
laughing brook steal into the quiet of a river.

Duvarney and I were thus alone for a moment, and he straightway dropped
a hand upon my shoulder. "Let me advise you," he said, "be friendly with
Doltaire. He has great influence at the Court and elsewhere. He can make
your bed hard or soft at the citadel."

I smiled at him, and replied, "I shall sleep no less sound because of
Monsi