mpted me in this way. As
if he divined what I thought, he said to me--for I made no attempt to
answer his question:

"Men of sense never confuse issues or choose the wrong time for their
purposes. Foes may have unwritten truces."

There was the matter in a nutshell. He had done nothing carelessly; he
was touching off our conflict with flashes of genius. He was the man who
had roused in me last night the fiercest passions of my life, and yet
this morning he had saved me from death, and, though he was still my
sworn enemy, I was about to breakfast with him.

Already the streets of the town were filling; for it was the day before
Christmas, and it would be the great market-day of the year. Few noticed
us as we sped along down Palace Street and I could not conceive whither
we were going, until, passing the Hotel Dieu, I saw in front the
Intendance. I remembered the last time I was there, and what had
happened then, and a thought flashed through me that perhaps this was
another trap. But I put it from me, and soon afterwards Doltaire said:

"I have now a slice of the Intendance for my own, and we shall breakfast
like squirrels in a loft."

As we drove into the open space before the palace, a company of soldiers
standing before the great door began marching up to the road by which
we came. With them was a prisoner. I saw at once that he was a British
officer, but I did not recognize his face. I asked his name of Doltaire,
and found it was one Lieutenant Stevens, of Rogers' Rangers, those brave
New Englanders. After an interview with Bigot he was being taken to
the common jail. To my request that I might speak with him Doltaire
assented, and at a sign from my companion the soldiers stopped.
Stevens's eyes were fixed on me with a puzzled, disturbed expression.
He was well built, of intrepid bearing, with a fine openness of manner
joined to handsome features. But there was a recklessness in his eye
which seemed to me to come nearer the swashbuckling character of a young
French seigneur than the wariness of a British soldier.

I spoke his name and introduced myself. His surprise and pleasure were
pronounced, for he had thought (as he said) that by this time I would be
dead. There was an instant's flash of his eye, as if a suspicion of
my loyalty had crossed his mind; but it was gone on the instant, and
immediately Doltaire, who also had interpreted the look, smiled, and
said he had carried me off to breakfast while the furn