se of the stream below. He was alone
except for a little child, a child too young to know her mother, had
death or disaster at that time removed the mother. Law took the little
one up in his arms and gazed hard upon the upturned face.

"Catharine!" he said to himself. "Catharine! Catharine!"

"Pardon, Monsieur," said a voice at his elbow. "Surely I have seen you
before this?"

Law turned. Joncaire, the ambassador of peace, stood by, smiling and
extending his hand.

"Naturally, I could never forget you," said Law.

"Monsieur looks at the shipping," said Joncaire, smiling. "Surely he
would not be leaving New France, after so luckily escaping the worst of
her dangers?"

"Life might be the same for me over there as here," replied Law. "As for
my luck, I must declare myself the most unfortunate man on earth."

"Your wife, perhaps, is ill?"

"Pardon, I have none."

"Pardon, in turn, Monsieur--but, you see--the child?"

"It is the child of a savage woman," said Law.

Joncaire pulled aside the infant's hood. He gave no sign, and a nice
indifference sat in his query: "_Une belle sauvage_?"

"_Belle sauvage_!"

BOOK III

FRANCE

CHAPTER I

THE GRAND MONARQUE

On a great bed of state, satin draped, flanked with ancient tapestries,
piled sickeningly soft with heaps of pillows, there lay a thin, withered
little man--old, old and very feeble. His face was shrunken and drawn
with pain; his eyes, once bright, were dulled; his brow, formerly
imperious, had lost its arrogance. Under the coverings which, in the
unrest of illness, he now pulled high about his face, now tossed
restlessly aside, his figure lay, an elongated, shapeless blot, scarce
showing beneath the silks. One limb, twitched and drawn up convulsively,
told of a definite seat of pain. The hands, thin and wasted, lay out
upon the coverlets; and the thumbs were creeping, creeping ever more
insistently, under the cover of the fingers, telling that the battle for
life was lost, that the surrender had been made.

It was a death-bed, this great bed of state; a death-bed situated in the
heart of the greatest temple of desire ever built in all the world. He
who had been master there, who had set in order those miles of stately
columns, those seas of glittering gilt and crystal, he who had been
magician, builder, creator, perverter, debaser--he, Louis of France, the
Grand Monarque, now lay suffering like any ordinary human being, like
any common man