oak, beech, maple and birch; luscious grape and rosy apple; corn and golden pumpkin.  They saw where the beaver burrowed in his dams, and in the golden shallows and emerald deeps of the lake caught glimpses of trout, bass, salmon and pickerel.  And what a picture met their eyes as they entered the palisades:  the black-robed priests, the shabby uniforms of the soldiers and their quaint weapons and dented helmets, the ragged garbs of the French gentlemen who had accompanied the expedition, the painted Indian and his ever-inconsolable dog.

“Here might a man dwell in peace,” said the Chevalier.

“Not with ambition for his bride,” was the vicomte’s observation.

The beginning of the end came on the seventh of October, after a famous hunting day.  A great fire was built on the shores of the lake.  The moon, crooked in shape and mellow as a fat pumpkin, hung low over the forest crests.  The water was golden and red:  the moon and the flames.  The braves were holding a hunting dance in honor of the kill.  There were at this time about sixty warriors encamped around the mission.  The main body was at the Long House, far back among the hills.  A weird chanting broke the stillness of the night.  The outer circle was composed of the older braves and chieftains, the colonists, the Jesuits, and the four unhappy men who were their guests.  None of the four took particular interest in the unique performance.  Here they were, but little better situated than at Oneida.  True, they were no longer ill-treated and food was plentiful, but they were held here in a captivity no less irksome.  They were prisoners of impotency.  Chance and the god of whims had put them upon a sorry highway to the heart’s desire.  It mattered nothing that madame had said plainly that she loved none of them.  The conceit of man is such that, like hope, it dies only when he dies.  Perhaps the poet’s heart was the most peaceful:  he had bravely turned over the alluring page.

The dance grew wilder and noisier.

Chaumonot guilelessly pushed his inquiries regarding Monsieur le Marquis.  Those thousand livres had done so much!  That generosity was so deeply imbedded in his mind!  And what had brought Monsieur le Marquis to Quebec, and how long was he to remain?  The Chevalier’s jaws knotted and knotted; but he succeeded in answering each question courteously or avoiding it adroitly by asking a question himself.  More than once he felt the desire to leap up and dash into the forest.  Anything but that name . . .  Monsieur le Marquis!  “Tell Monsieur le Comte for me that I am sleeping and may not be disturbed!” It had been a cup of gall indeed that he drank outside his father’s chamber.

All this while D’Herouville smiled and smiled; the vicomte labored over the rust on his blade.  When at length the good Father moved to another side of the circle, where Du Puys and Nicot sat, the Chevalier stood up and stepped before D’Herouville.