to settle its position by tracing in his mind the way he had come through
the prison. Iberville or Perrot could have done so instinctively, but he
was not woodsman enough. He thought, however, that the doorway led to a
staircase, like most doors of the kind in old buildings. There was the
window. It was small and high up from the floor, and even could he
loosen the bars, it were not possible to squeeze through. Besides, there
was the yard to cross and the outer wall to scale. And that achieved,
with the town still full of armed men, he would have a perilous run. He
tried the door: it was stoutly fastened; the bolts were on the other
side; the key-hole was filled. Here was sufficient exasperation. He had
secreted a small knife on his person, and he now sat down, turned it over
in his hand, looked up at the window and the smooth wall below it, at the
mocking door, then smiled at his own poor condition and gave himself to
cheerless meditation.

He was concerned most for his wife. It was not in him to give up till
the inevitable was on him and he could not yet believe that Count
Frontenac would carry out the sentence. At the sudden thought of the
rope--so ignominious, so hateful--he shuddered. But the shame of it was
for his wife, who had dissipated a certain selfish and envious strain in
him. Jessica had drawn from him the Puritanism which had made him self-
conscious, envious, insular.




CHAPTER XXI

AN UNTOWARD MESSENGER