“Ah!” murmured the vicomte, “the little Jesuit has learned the trick, too, it would seem.  He is reading my face.  I must know more of this handsome fellow whose blood is red and healthy.  He comes from no such humble origin as Father Chaumonot.  Bah! and look at those nuns:  they are animated coffins, holding only dead remembrances and dried, perfumeless flowers.”

A strong and steady east wind had driven away all vestige of the storm.  The sea was running westward in long and swinging leaps, colorful, dazzling, foam-crested.  The singing air was spangled with frosty brine-mist; a thousand flashes were cast back from the city windows; the flower of the lily fluttered from a hundred masts.  A noble vision, truly, was the good ship Saint Laurent, standing out boldly against the clear horizon and the dark green of the waters.  High up among the spars and shrouds swarmed the seamen.  Canvas flapped and bellied as it dropped, from arm to arm, sending the fallen snow in a flurry to the decks.  On the poop-deck stood the black-gowned Jesuits, the sad-faced nuns, several members of the great company, soldiers and adventurers.  The wharves and docks and piers were crowded with the curious:  bright-gowned peasants, soldiers from the fort, merchants, and a sprinkling of the noblesse.  It was not every day that a great ship left the harbor on so long and hazardous a voyage.

The Chevalier leaned against the railing, dreamily noting the white faces in the sunshine.  He was still vaguely striving to convince himself that he was in the midst of some dream.  He was conscious of an approaching illness, too.  When would he wake? . . . and where?  A hand touched his arm.  He turned and saw Brother Jacques.  There was a kindly expression on the young priest’s face.  He now saw the Chevalier in a new light.  It was not as the gay cavalier, handsome, rich, care-free; it was as a man who, suffering a mortal stroke, carried his head high, hiding the wound like a Spartan.

“A last look at France, Monsieur le Chevalier, for many a day to come.”

The Chevalier nodded.

“For many days, indeed. . . .  And who among us shall look upon France again in the days to come?  It is a long way from the Candlestick in Paris to the deck of the Saint Laurent.  The widest stretch of fancy would not have brought us together again.  There is, then, some invisible hand that guides us surely and certainly to our various ends, as the English poet says.”  The Chevalier was speaking to a thought rather than to Brother Jacques.  “Who among us shall look upon these shores again?”

“What about these shores, Paul?” asked Victor, coming up.  “They are not very engaging just now.”

“But it is France, Victor; it is France; and from any part of France Paris may be reached.”  He turned his face toward the north, in the direction of Paris.  His eyes closed; he was very pale.  “Do we not die sometimes, Victor, while yet the heart and brain go on beating and thinking?”