u_."

"Who are you that you should stop me?" I exclaimed angrily. "You are a
priest, and your duty is with souls."

"That is why," answered Pere Antoine. "You are in pursuit of a married
woman."

"I do not know anything about that, but I am the protector of a
defenceless one," I answered, "and I shall seek her until she sends me
away. Do you know where her husband is?"

"No, _monsieur_," answered the old man. "And you?"

I burst into an impassioned appeal to him. I told him of Leroux and
his conspiracy to obtain possession of the property, of my encounter
with Jacqueline, and how I had rescued her, omitting mention of course
of the murder.

As I went on I could see the look of surprise upon his face gradually
change into belief.

I told him of our journey across the snow and begged him to help me to
rescue Jacqueline, or at least to find her. I added that the trouble
had partially destroyed her memory, so that she was not competent to
decide who her protectors were.

When I had ended he was looking at me with a benignancy that I had
never seen before upon his face.

"M. Hewlett," he answered, "I have long suspected a part of what you
have told me, and therefore I readily accept your statements. I
believe now that _madame_ has suffered no wrong from you. But I am a
priest, and, as you say, my care is only that of souls. _Madame_ is
married. I married her----"

"To whom?" I cried.

"To M. Louis d'Epernay, nephew of M. Charles Duchaine by marriage, less
than two weeks ago in the _chateau_ here."

The addition of the last word singularly revived my hopes. It had
slipped from his lips unconsciously, but it gave me reason to believe
that the chateau was near by.

Father Antoine sat down upon the chair beside me.

"M. Duchaine has been a recluse for many years," he said, "and of late
his mind has become affected. It is said that he was implicated in the
troubles of 1867, and that, fearing arrest, he fled here and built this
chateau, in this desolate region, where he would be safe from pursuit.
If anyone ever contemplated denouncing him, at any rate those events
have long ago been forgotten. But solitude has made a hermit of him
and taken him out of touch with the world of to-day.

"I believe that Leroux has discovered coal on his property, and by
threatening him with arrest has gained a complete ascendency over the
weak-minded old man. However, the fact remains that his daughter was
married b