the
altar, had quieted the angry arm lifted to strike, had anointed the brow
of the dying, and laid a crucifix on breasts which had ceased to harbour
breath and care and love, and all things else.

Silence fell. In another moment the Cure finished his sermon, but not
till his eyes had again met those of Valmond, and there had passed into
his mind a sudden, startling thought.

Unconsciously the Cure had declared himself the patron of all that made
Pontiac for ever a notable spot in the eyes of three nations: and if he
repented of it, no man ever knew.

During mass and the sermon Valmond had sat very still, once or twice
smiling curiously at thought of how, inactive himself, the gate of
destiny was being opened up for him. Yet he had not been all inactive.
He had paid much attention to his toilet, selecting, with purpose, the
white waistcoat, the long, blue-grey coat cut in a fashion anterior to
this time by thirty years or more, and particularly to the arrangement
of his hair. He resembled Napoleon--not the later Napoleon, but the
Bonaparte, lean, shy, laconic, who fought at Marengo; and this had
startled the Cure in his pulpit, and the rest of the little coterie.

But Madame Chalice, sitting not far from Elise Malboir, had seen the
resemblance in the Cure's garden on Friday evening; and though she
had laughed at it, for, indeed, the matter seemed ludicrous enough at
first,--the impression had remained. She was no Catholic, she did not as
a rule care for religious services; but there was interest in the air,
she was restless, the morning was inviting, she was reverent of all true
expression of life and feeling, though a sad mocker in much; and so she
had come to the little church.

Following Elise's intent look, she read with amusement the girl's
budding romance, and was then suddenly arrested by the head of Valmond,
now half turned towards her. It had, indeed, a look of the First
Napoleon. Was it the hair? Yes, it must be; but the head was not so
square, so firm set; and what a world of difference in the grand effect!
The one had been distant, splendid, brooding (so she glorified him);
the other was an impressionist imitation, with dash, form, poetry, and
colour. But where was the great strength? It was lacking. The close
association of Parpon and Valmond--that was droll; yet, too, it had
a sort of fitness, she knew scarcely why. However, Monsieur was not a
fool, in the vulgar sense, for he had made a friend of a