ng a
time, and he had sent me on this errand with evident reluctance. He
would meet us at Fort York, where there was a priest to perform the
marriage ceremony.

As I said before, the task was not to my liking. Love was a word without
meaning to me. I knew nothing of women, and had reached the age of
twenty-five without giving a thought to the other sex. I was completely
ignorant of the purport of the letters that had passed between Griffith
Hawke and the head office, and as I never questioned him about
particulars, he never vouchsafed me any. I naturally expected to meet a
middle-aged dame who would make a suitable partner for the prosaic
factor, and would adapt herself to the crude life and customs of the
lonely trading post.

A mission of adventure and deadly peril would have been more to my
taste, but this strange enterprise was put upon me in the capacity of a
company's servant, and I was resolved to carry out my instructions to
the best of my ability. I was pondering the matter as I sat in the hotel
that June night, and reflecting, with some relief, that I should not be
much longer detained in Quebec, for the Good Hope was expected in port
at any day or hour.

Having finished my third pipe, I knocked the ashes out gently so as not
to disturb my still sleeping companion. I rose to my feet, stifling a
yawn, and just then a man entered the room from the bar, closing the
door behind him. While he stood hesitating, I took in his appearance by
a brief glance. He was tall, slim and wiry, with tawny yellow hair worn
long, and thick, drooping mustache. His eyes were of a cold steel-blue,
and his face, though very handsome, had something sinister and fierce
about it. From his attire I judged him at once to be a polished man of
the world, who had seen other lands than the Canadas. He wore a
lace-trimmed coat of buff, breeches of the same material, top boots of
tanned buckskin, and abroad felt hat of a claret color. For the rest, a
sword dangled at his side, and a brace of pistols peeped from his belt.
He looked about fifty, and by his flushed countenance I saw that he was
more or less under the influence of liquor.

I noticed all this even before the man drew closer. Then seeing me
clearly in the light shed from the candles, he gave a sudden start. The
color left his cheeks, and he stared at me with an unmistakable
expression of bewildered surprise, of something like sharp fear and
guilt. I never doubted that he mistook