moments afterwards he came to me, and remarked cheerfully, 'In this
farther corner where the spinet sounds most we can talk best'; and
we went near to the spinet, where Madame Lotbiniere was playing.
'It is true,' he began, 'that I have had a letter from your brother.
He begs me to use influence for his advancement. You see he writes
to me instead of to the Governor. You can guess how I stand in
France. Well, we shall see what I may do.... Have you not wondered
concerning me this week?' he asked. I said to him, 'I scarce
expected you till after to-morrow, when you would plead some
accident as cause for not fulfilling your pretty little boast.' He
looked at me sharply for a minute, and then said: 'A pretty LITTLE
boast, is it? H'm! you touch great things with light fingers.' I
nodded. 'Yes,' said I, 'when I have no great faith.' 'You have
marvellous coldness for a girl that promised warmth in her youth,'
he answered. 'Even I, who am old in these matters, can not think of
this Moray's death without a twinge, for it is not like an affair
of battle; but you seem to think of it in its relation to my
"little boast," as you call it. Is it not so?'

"'No, no,' said I, with apparent indignation, 'you must not make
me out so cruel. I am not so hard-hearted as you think. My brother
is well--I have no feeling against Captain Moray on his account;
and as for spying--well, it is only a painful epithet for what is
done here and everywhere all the time.' 'Dear me, dear me,' he
remarked lightly, 'what a mind you have for argument!--a born
casuist; and yet, like all women, you would let your sympathy rule
you in matters of state. But come,' he added, 'where do you think
I have been?' It was hard to answer him gaily, and yet it must be
done, and so I said, 'You have probably put yourself in prison,
that you should not keep your tiny boast.' 'I have been in prison,'