ame Lavilette the best advice and warning; but, in
truth, he enjoyed what he considered a piquant position. Once, drawing
at his pipe, as little like an Englishman as possible, he tried to say
with an English accent, "Amusing and awkward situation!" but he said,
"Damn funny and chic!" instead. He had no idea that any particular harm
would be done--either by love or marriage; and neither seemed certain.

One day as Ferrol, entirely convalescent, was sitting in an arbour of
the Manor garden, half asleep, he was awakened by voices near him.

He did not recognise one of the voices; the other was Nic Lavilette's.

The strange voice was saying: "I have collected five thousand
dollars--all that can be got in the two counties. It is at the
Seigneury. Here is an order on the Seigneur Duhamel. Go there in two
days and get the money. You will carry it to headquarters. These are
General Papineau's orders. You will understand that your men--"

Ferrol heard no more, for the two rebels passed on, their voices
becoming indistinct. He sat for a few moments moveless, for an idea had
occurred to him even as Papineau's agent spoke.

If that money were only his!

Five thousand dollars--how that would ease the situation! The money
belonged to whom? To a lot of rebels: to be used for making war against
the British Government. After the money left the hands of the men who
gave it--Lavilette and the rest--it wasn't theirs. It belonged to a
cause. Well, he was the enemy of that cause. All was fair in love and
war!

There were two ways of doing it. He could waylay Nicolas as he came from
the house of the old seigneur, could call to him to throw up his hands
in good highwayman fashion, and, well disguised, could get away with the
money without being discovered. Or again, he could follow Nic from the
Seigneury to the Manor, discover where he kept the money, and devise a
plan to steal it.

For some time he had given up smoking; but now, as a sort of celebration
of his plan, he opened his cigar case, and finding two cigars left, took
one out and lighted it.

"By Jove," he said to himself, "thieving is a nice come-down, I must
say! But a man has to live, and I'm sick of charity--sick of it. I've
had enough."

He puffed his cigar briskly, and enjoyed the forbidden and deadly luxury
to the full.

Presently he got up, took his stick, came down-stairs, and passed out
into the garden. The shoulder which had been lacerated by the bear
drooped