Man needs obstacles to overcome to be great either in courage or magnanimity; he needs the sense of injustice, of wrong, of unmerited contempt; he needs the wrath against these things without which man becomes passive like non-carnivorous animals.  And had not he obstacles?—­unrequited love, escutcheon to make bright and whole?

From a short distance Brother Jacques contemplated the Chevalier, gloomily and morosely.  Envy, said the marquis, gibing.  Yes, envy; envy of the large life, envy of riches, of worldly pleasures, of the love of women.  Cursed be this drop of acid which seared his heart:  envy.  How he envied yon handsome fellow, with his lordly airs, the life he had led and the gold he had spent!  And yet . . .  Brother Jacques was a hero for all his robes.  He cast out envy in the thought, and made his way toward the Chevalier, whose face showed that at this moment he was not very glad to see Brother Jacques.

“My brother, your father is very ill.”

“That is possible,” said the Chevalier, swinging to the ground.  He did not propose to confide any of his thoughts to the priest.  “He is old, and is wasteful of his energies.”

“Yes, he has wasted his energies; in your cause, Monsieur, remember that.  Your father had nothing in common with D’Herouville.  Their paths had never crossed . . . and never will cross again.”

The Chevalier kicked the stones impatiently.  So Brother Jacques understood why the marquis had fought the Comte d’Herouville?

“May I be so bold as to ask what took place between you and Monsieur le Marquis on the night of his arrival in Quebec?”

“I must leave you in ignorance,” said the Chevalier decisively.

“He may never leave his bed.”

The Chevalier bit the ends of his mustache, and remained silent.

“He came a long way to do you a service,” continued the priest.

“Who can say as to that?  And I do not see that all this particularly concerns you.”

“But you will admit that he fought the man who . . . who laughed.”

The Chevalier let slip a stirring oath, and the grip he put on the hilt of his sword would have crushed the hand of an average strong man.

“Monsieur, it is true that your father has wronged you, but can you not forgive him?”

The Chevalier stared scowlingly into the Jesuit’s eyes.  “Would you forgive a father who, as a pastime, had temporarily made you . . . a bastard?”

The priest’s shudder did not escape the searching eyes of the Chevalier.  “Ha!  I thought not.  Do not expect me, a worldly man, to do what you, a priest, shrink from.”

“Do not put me in your place.  Monsieur.  I would forgive him had he done to me what he has done to you.”

The Chevalier saw no ambiguity.  “That is easily said.  You are a priest, I am a worldling; what to you would mean but little, to me would be the rending of the core of life.  My father can not undo what he has done; he can not piece together and make whole the wreck he has made of my life.”