near a hundred years, we Frenchmen, eating dirt in the
country we owned from the start; and I'd rather die fighting to get
back the old citadel than live with the English heel on my nose," said
Lavilette, with a play-acting attempt at oratory.

"Yes, an' dey call us Johnny Pea-soups," said Castine, with a furtive
grin. "An' perhaps that British Colborne will hang us to our barn
doors--eh?"

There was silence for a moment, in which Lavilette read the letter over
again with gloating eyes. Presently Castine started and looked round.

"What's that?" he said in a whisper. "I heard nothing."

"I heard the feet of a man--yes."

They both stood moveless, listening. There was no sound; but, at the
same time, the Hon. Mr. Ferrol had the secret of the Rebellion in his
hands.

A moment later Castine and his bear were out in the road. Lavilette
leaned out of the window and mused. Castine's words of a few moments
before came to him:

"That British Colborne will hang us to our barn doors--eh?"

He shuddered, and struck a light.

CHAPTER VII

Mr. Ferrol slept in the large guest-chamber of the house. Above it was
Christine's bedroom. Thick as were the timbers and boards of the floor,
Christine could hear one sound, painfully monotonous and frequent,
coming from his room the whole night--the hacking, rending cough which
she had heard so often since he came. The fear of Vanne Castine, the
memories of the wild, half animal-like love she had had for him in the
old days, the excitement of the new events which had come into her life;
these kept her awake, and she tossed and turned in feverish unrest.
All that had happened since Ferrol had arrived, every word that he
had spoken, every motion that he had made, every look of his face, she
recalled vividly. All that he was, which was different from the
people she had known, she magnified, so that to her he had a distant,
overwhelming sort of grandeur. She beat the bedclothes in her
restlessness. Suddenly she sat up straight in bed.

"Oh, if I hadn't been a Lavilette! If I'd only been born and brought
up with the sort of people he comes from, I'd not have been ashamed of
myself or him of me."

The plush bodice she had worn that day danced before her eyes. She knew
how horribly ugly it was. Her fingers ran over the patchwork quilt on
her bed; and although she could not see it, she loathed it, because she
knew it was a painful mess of colours. With a little touch of
dramatic ex