nd the priest's; nor was I astonished when he
presently made just such a proposal as I should have expected from
Father Antoine himself.

'There is only one thing for it,' he muttered, trembling all over. 'He
must be got rid of!'

'Fine talking!' I said, contemptuously. 'If he were a soldier he might
be brought to it. But he is a priest, my friend, and does not fight.'

'Fight? Who wants him to fight?' the lad answered, his face dark, his
hands moving restlessly. 'It is the easier done. A blow in the back, and
he will trouble us no more.'

'Who is to strike it?' I asked drily.

Simon trembled and hesitated; but presently, heaving a deep sigh, he
said, 'I will.'

'It might not be difficult,' I muttered, thinking it over.

'It would be easy,' he answered under his breath. His eyes shone, his
lips were white, and his long dark hair hung wet over his forehead.

I reflected, and the longer I did so the more feasible seemed the
suggestion. A single word, and I might sweep from my path the man whose
existence threatened mine; who would not meet me fairly, but, working
against me darkly and treacherously, deserved no better treatment at my
hands than that which a detected spy receives. He had wronged my mother;
he would fain destroy my friends!

And, doubtless, I shall be blamed by some and ridiculed by more for
indulging in scruples at such a time. But I have all my life long been
prejudiced against that form of underhand violence which I have heard
old men contend came into fashion in our country in modern times, and
which certainly seems to be alien from the French character. Without
judging others too harshly, or saying that the poniard is never
excusable--for then might some wrongs done to women and the helpless
go without remedy--I have set my face against its use as unworthy of a
soldier. At the time, moreover, of which I am now writing the extent to
which our enemies had lately resorted to it tended to fix this feeling
with peculiar firmness in my mind; and, but for the very desperate
dilemma in which I stood at the moment--and not I alone--I do not think
that I should have entertained Simon's proposal for a minute.

As it was, I presently answered him in a way which left him in no doubt
of my sentiments. 'Simon, my friend,' I said--and I remember I was a
little moved--'you have something still to learn, both as a soldier and
a Huguenot. Neither the one nor the other strikes at the back.'

'But if he will n