The widow allowed no one to care for Schmidt's library except her daughter or herself. It contained little of value except books, but even those Indian arrow-heads he found on Tinicum Island and the strange bones from near Valley Forge were dusted with care and regarded with the more curiosity because, even to the German, they spoke no language the world as yet could read.

As she turned from her task and Margaret entered, she saw in her face the signal of something to be told. It needed not the words, "Oh, mother," as she closed the door behind her—"oh, mother, I am afraid I have done a wrong thing; but I met RenÉ de Courval,—I mean, he met me,—and—and he asked me to marry him—and I will; no one shall stop me." There was a note of anticipative defiance in the young voice as she spoke.

"Sit down, dear child."

The girl sunk on a cushion at her feet, her head in the mother's lap. "I could not help it," she murmured, sobbing.

"I saw this would come to thee, long ago," said the mother. "I had hoped thou wouldst be so guided as not to let thy heart get the better of thy head."

"It is my head has got me into this—this sweet trouble. Thou knowest that I have had others, and some who had thy favor; but, mother, here for two years I have lived day by day in the house with RenÉ, and have seen him so living as to win esteem and honor, a tender son to his mother, and so respectful to thee, who, for her, art only the keeper of a boarding-house. Thou knowest what Friend Schmidt says of him. I heard him tell Friend Hamilton. He said—he said he was a gallant gentleman, and he wished he were his son. You see, mother, it was first respect and then—love. Oh, mother, that duel! I knew as I saw him carried in that I loved him." She spoke rapidly, with little breaks in her voice, and now was silent.

"It is bad, very bad, my child. I see no end of trouble—oh, it is bad, bad, for thee and for him!"

"It is good, good, mother, for me and for him. He has waited long. There has been something, I do not know what, kept him from speaking sooner. It is over now."

"I do not see what there could have been, unless it were his mother. It may well be that. Does she know?"

"When he comes back he will tell her."

"I do not like it, and I dislike needless mysteries. From a worldly point of view,—and I at least, who have drunk deep of poverty, must somewhat think for thee. Here are two people without competent means—"

"But I love him."

"And his mother?"

"But I love him." She had no other logic. "Oh, I wish Mr. Schmidt were here! RenÉ says he will like it."

"That, at least, is a good thing." Both were silent a little while. Mrs. Swanwick had been long used to defer to the German's opinions, but looking far past love's limited horizon, the widow thought of the certain anger of the mother, of the trap she in her pride would think set for her son by designing people, her prejudices intensified by the mere fact of the poverty which left her nothing but exaggerated estimates of her son and what he was entitled to demand of the woman he should some day marry. And too, RenÉ had often spoken of a return to France. She said at last: "We will leave the matter now, and speak of it to no one; but I should say to thee, my dear, that apart from what for thy sake I should consider, and the one sad thing of his willingness to avenge a hasty word by possibly killing a fellow-man,—how terrible!—apart from these things, there is no one I had been more willing to give thee to than RenÉ de Courval."

"Thank thee, mother." The evil hour when the vicomtesse must hear was at least remote, and something akin to anger rose in the widow's mind as she thought of it.

RenÉ came in to supper. Mrs. Swanwick was as usual quiet, asking questions in regard to Margaret's errand of charity, but of a mind to win time for reflection, and unwilling as yet to open the subject with RenÉ.

When, late in the evening, he came out of the study where he had been busy with the instructions left by Schmidt, he was annoyed to learn that Margaret had gone up-stairs. There was still before him the task of speaking to his mother of what he was sure was often in her mind, Carteaux. She had learned from the gossip of guests that a Frenchman had been set upon near Bristol and had been robbed and wounded. Incurious and self-centered, the affairs of the outer world had for her but little real interest. Now she must have her mind set at ease, for RenÉ well knew that she had not expected him to rest contented or to be satisfied with the result of his unfortunate duel. Her puritan creed was powerless here as against her social training, and her sense of what so hideous a wrong as her husband's murder should exact from his son.

"I have something to tell you, maman," he said; "and before I go, it is well that I should tell you."

"Well, what is it?" she said coldly, and then, as before, uneasily anxious.

"On the twenty-ninth of November I learned that Carteaux had started for New York an hour before I heard of it, on his way to France. I had waited long—undecided, fearing that again some evil chance might leave you alone in a strange land."

"You did wrong, RenÉ. There are duties which ought to permit of no such indecision. You should not have considered me for a moment. Go on."

"How could I help it, thinking of you, mother? I followed, and overtook this man near Bristol. I meant no chance with the sword this time. He was unarmed. I gave him the choice of my pistols, bade him pace the distance, and give the word. He walked away some six feet, half the distance, and, turning suddenly, fired, grazing my shoulder. I shot him—ah, a terrible wound in arm and shoulder. Schmidt had found a note I left for him, and, missing his pistols, inquired at the French legation, and came up in time to see it all and to prevent me from killing the man."

"Pre—vent you! How did he dare!"

"Yes, mother; and it was well. Schmidt found, when binding up his wound, that he was carrying despatches from the Republican Minister Fauchet to go by the corvette Jean Bart, waiting in New York Harbor."

"What difference did that make?"

"Why, mother, I am in the State Department. To have killed a member of the French legation, or stopped his journey, would have been ruin to me and a weapon in the hands of these mock Jacobins."

"But you did stop him."

"Yes; but I delivered the despatch myself to the corvette."

"Yes, you were right; but what next? He must have spoken."

"No. The threat from Schmidt that he would tell the whole story of Avignon and his treachery to me has made him lie and say he had been set upon by unknown persons and robbed of his papers. He has wisely held his tongue. He is crippled for life and has suffered horribly. Now he goes to France a broken, miserable man, punished as death's release could not punish."

"I do not know that. I have faith in the vengeance of God. You should have killed him. You did not. And so I suppose there is an end of it for a time. Is that all, RenÉ?"

"Yes, that is all. The loss of the despatch remains a mystery, and the Democrats are foolish enough to believe we have it in the foreign office. No one of them but Carteaux knows and he dare not speak. The despatch will never come back here, or if it does, Carteaux will have gone. People have ceased to talk about it, and now, mother, I am going away with an easy mind. Do not worry over this matter. Good night."

"Worry?" she cried. "Ah, I would have killed the Jacobin dog!"

"I meant to," he said, and left her.

At dawn he was up and had his breakfast and there was Pearl in the hall and her hands on his two shoulders. "Kiss me," she said. "God bless and guard thee, RenÉ!"