o him than the
feeling just come to him, but he knew also that while the one remained
the other would also.

He stood up and folded his arms, looking into the silence and mist. His
hand mechanically dropped to his sword, and he glanced up proudly to the
silver flag with its golden lilies floating softly on the slight breeze
they made as they passed.

"The sword!" he said under his breath. "The world and a woman by the
sword; there is no other way."

He had the spirit of his time. The sword was its faith, its magic. If
two men loved a woman, the natural way to make happiness for all was
to let the sword do its eager office. For they had one of the
least-believed and most unpopular of truths, that a woman's love is
more a matter of mastery and possession than instinct, two men being of
comparatively equal merit and sincerity.

His figure seemed to grow larger in the mist, and the grey haze gave his
hair a frosty coating, so that age and youth seemed strangely mingled in
him. He stood motionless for a long time as the song went on:

"Qui vive!
Who saileth into the morn,
Out of the wind of the dawn?
'Follow, oh, follow me on!'
Calleth a distant horn.
He is here--he is there--he is gone,
Tall seigneur of the dawn!
Qui vive! Qui vive! in the dawn."

Some one touched Iberville's arm. It was Dollier de Casson. Iberville
turned to him, but they did not speak at first--the priest knew his
friend well.

"We shall succeed, abbe," Iberville said.

"May our quarrel be a just one, Pierre," was the grave reply.

"The forts are our king's; the man is with my conscience, my dear
friend."

"But if you make sorrow for the woman?"

"You brought me a gift from her!" His finger touched his doublet.

"She is English, my Pierre."

"She is what God made her."

"She may be sworn to the man."

Iberville started, then shook his head incredulously. "He is not worthy
of her."

"Are you?"

"I know her value better and prize it more."

"You have not seen her for four years."

"I had not seen you for four years--and yet!"

"You saw her then only for a few days--and she was so young!"

"What are days or years? Things lie deep in us till some great moment,
and then they spring into life and are ours for ever. When I kissed King
Louis' hand I knew that I loved my king; when De Montespan's. I hated,
and shall hate always. When I first saw this Eng