oice of the Church, and hoped
this fervent repentance would be remembered in her behalf. Then she
resigned herself to death. But in the providence of the good All Father
she was rescued by another party and taken to a farmhouse not far
distant. Here were two devoted women who were going to Montreal to enter
the convent, and were to embark at a point on Lake Ontario, where a boat
going North would touch. They nursed her for several weeks before she
was able to travel, and then she decided to cast in her lot with them.
Her husband, no doubt, had the child. She was dead to the world. She
belonged henceforward to the Church and to the service of God. Moreover,
it was what she desired. She had tried worldly love and her own will,
and been unhappy in it. Monsieur, she was born for a devotee. It was a
sad mistake when she yielded to your persuasions. Her parents had
destined her for the convent, and she had a double debt to pay. The
marriage was unlawful and she was absolved from it."

"Then I was free also. It cannot bind on one side and loose on the
other. I believe you have said rightly. She was not happy, though I
think even now she will tell you that I did all in my power. I did not
oppose her going back to her first faith, although then I would have
fought against this disruption of the marriage tie."

"It was no marriage in God's sight, with a heretic," interposed Father
Gilbert. "She repented her waywardness bitterly. God made her to see it
through sore trial. But the child is hers."

"Not when you admit that she sent it to me, gave me the right," was the
confident reply.

He pressed Jeanne closer and with a strength that said, "I will fight
for you." The proud dignity of his carriage, the resolution in his face,
indicated that he would not be an easy enemy to combat. There was a
strange silence, as if no one could tell what would be the next move. He
broke it, however.

"The child shall decide," he said. "She shall hear her mother's story,
and then mine. She shall select with whom she will spend the coming
years. God knows I should have been glad enough to have had her then. By
what sad mistake fate should have traversed the mother's wishes, and
given her these wasted years, I cannot divine."

They were only to guess at that. The Miami woman had grown tired of her
charge, so unlike the papooses of the Indian mothers. Then, too, it was
heavy to carry, difficult to feed. She met a party of her own tribe and
resol