r persecutors? How do I know you are a priest at all?"

He seemed amazed at the violence of my manner.

"This is the first time my priesthood has been denied," he said
quietly. "Well, I have offered you your chance. I cannot use
violence. If you refuse, you will bring your own punishment upon your
head, and hers on that of the unhappy woman whom you have led into sin."

"Go!" I shouted, pointing down the passage.

He turned and went, his _soutane_ sweeping against the door of
Jacqueline's room as he went by. At the entrance to the elevator he
turned again and looked back steadily at me. Then the door clanged and
the elevator went down.

I unlocked the door of Jacqueline's room. I saw her standing at the
foot of the bed. She was supporting herself by her hands on the brass
framework. Her face was white. As I entered she looked up piteously
at me.

"Who--was--that?" she asked in a frightened whisper.

"An impudent fellow--that is all, Jacqueline."

"I thought I knew his voice," she answered slowly. "It made
me--almost--remember. And I do not want to remember, Paul."

She put her arms about my neck and cried. I tried to comfort her, but
it was a long time before I succeeded.

I locked her door on the outside, and that night I slept with the key
beneath my pillow.

CHAPTER VI

AT THE FOOT OF THE CLIFF

The next morning, after again cautioning Jacqueline not to leave her
room until I returned, I went to the house of Captain Dubois on Paul
Street, in the Lower Town.

I was admitted by a pleasant-looking woman who told me that the captain
would not be home until three in the afternoon, so I returned to the
chateau, took Jacqueline for a sleigh ride round the fortifications,
and delighted her, and myself also, by the purchase of two fur coats,
heavy enough to exclude the biting cold which I anticipated we should
experience during our journey.

In the afternoon I went back to Paul Street and found M. Dubois at
home. He was a man of agreeable appearance, a typical Frenchman of
about forty-five, with a full face sparsely covered with a black beard
that was beginning to turn grey at the sides, and with an air of
sagacious understanding, in which I detected both sympathy and a
lurking humour.

When I explained that I wanted to secure two passages to St. Boniface,
his brows contracted.

"So you, too, are going to the Chateau Duchaine!" he exclaimed. "Is
there not room for two more on the bo