e!--to bring him to my feet and tell him who I
am--and laugh!"

"I should advise you not to try it, Gabrielle. He might become
formidable. Are you not mischief endowed with a woman's form?"

"A mare's nest it is, truly; but since I have entered it
willingly . . ."

"Well?"

"I shall not return to France on the Henri IV," determinedly.

"But Du Cevennes and the others?"

"I shall avoid Monsieur du Cevennes; I shall laugh in D'Herouville's
face; the vicomte will find me as cold and repelling as that iceberg
which we passed near Acadia."

"And Monsieur de Saumaise?" Anne persisted.

"Well, if he wishes it, he may play Strephon to my Phyllis, only the
idyl must go no further than verses. No, Anne; his is a brave, good
heart, and I shall not play with it. I am too honest."

"Well, at any rate, you will not become dull while I am on probation.
And you will also become affiliated with the Ursulines?"

Madame smiled with gentle irony. "Oh, yes, indeed! And I shall teach
Indian children to speak French as elegantly as Brantome wrote it, and
knit nurses' caps for the good squaws. . . . Faith, Anne, dear, if I
did not love you, the Henri IV could not carry me back to France quick
enough." Madame leaned from the window and sniffed the forest perfumes.

"You will be here six months, then."

"That will give certain personages in France time to forget."

"You were very uncivil to Monsieur le Marquis on board."

"I adore that race, the Perignys," wrathfully. "Twenty times I had the
impulse to tell him who I am."

"But you did not. And what can he be doing here?"

"Doubtless he intends to become a Jesuit father: or he is here for the
purpose of taking his son back to France. Like the good parent he is,
he does not wait for the prodigal's return. He comes after him."

"Monsieur le Marquis was taken ill last night, so I understand."

"Ah! perhaps the prodigal scorned the fatted calf!"

"Yon are very bitter."

"I have been married four years; my freedom is become so large that I
know not what to do with it. Married four years, and every night upon
retiring I have locked the door of my bedchamber. And what is the
widow's portion? The menace of the block or imprisonment. I was a
lure to his political schemes, and I never knew it till too late.
Could I but find that paper! Writing is a dangerous and compromising
habit. I shall never use a pen again; not I. One signs a marriage
certificate or a death