he getting of money. He would say
in his cynical, loud way that the end justifies the means, and with him
the end is Angelique des Meloises. She is probably going to be the
Delilah of New France, the woman who is shearing it of its upholding
strength, but she is fine.

"Ah, ha! the name of Angelique is fresh to you, has no meaning, and I
see you halting and asking me to tell you more of her. But here she is
a household word--or, should it be, by-word?--and I, a stranger, am
counted fortunate in having come close to the rustle of her skirt.
That skirt, you can believe me, is in many fabrics, and ever of the
best, and, though I cannot confirm it, the other women of Quebec say
that no parcel of lace, or silk, or satin, freshly sent by Old France
to New France, is free of being tampered with by Bigot in the
pleasuring of his mistress. Without that news in your ear, you would
not, my friend, comprehend the Chateau Bigot.

"Angelique was not the first flame with whom the old sinner has lit his
fires in Canada, for there was Caroline, the Algonquin maid, not to
mention others. Bigot, the story goes, had been hunting and, be it
conceded, he is, for a Frenchman, a sound shot, and had lost himself in
the wilds. Presently, while he pondered on his course, there appeared
a fascinating Indian girl, and he made her guide him to his chateau and
there kept her. The woman pays in such affairs, be she white, brown,
or black, all the complexions I have seen, and that Indian lass came to
a sad end, being found stark one morning in bed, with a knife through
her lissom body.

"But that was Bigot of the Garden of Eden, the primitive savage of
passion who would have his apple without having to eat the punishment,
so far, anyhow, though, I suppose, the devil, who has seven-league
boots when he likes, will overtake him. If he were to do it now he
would find him engrossed in the smiles and, maybe, the caresses of
Angelique. I have, myself, pretended to be some judge of woman-folk,
and Angelique pleases me in divers manners. That is an admission I
would not mind making to herself, though, to be sure, I have found it
the silent gallantry towards women which reaps most harvest. She is,
by marriage, Madame Pean, wife of a creature whom Bigot uses, and she
is a note of lovely abandon which a man with half my insurgency would
like to pluck an' he could.

"We have been introduced, Madame Angelique and I, for here all goes by
the most cor