"Well, then, choose the word for yourself. What shall it be? Come,
I promise you that he shall hear it. I will take with me the
notary, and the good man Girard, and the little Marie Antoinette.
You shall hear an answer. What message?"

"Mon pere," said Prosper, slowly, "you shall tell him just this. I,
Prosper Leclere, ask Raoul Vaillantcoeur that he will forgive me for
not fighting with him on the ground when he demanded it."

Yes, the message was given in precisely those words. Marie
Antoinette stood within the door, Bergeron and Girard at the foot of
the bed, and the cure spoke very clearly and firmly. Vaillantcoeur
rolled on his pillow and turned his face away. Then he sat up in
bed, grunting a little with the pain in his shoulder, which was
badly set. His black eyes snapped like the eyes of a wolverine in a
corner.

"Forgive?" he said, "no, never. He is a coward. I will never
forgive!"


A little later in the afternoon, when the rose of sunset lay on the
snowy hills, some one knocked at the door of Leclere's house.

"ENTREZ!" he cried. "Who is there? I see not very well by this
light. Who is it?"

"It is me, said 'Toinette, her cheeks rosier than the snow outside,
"nobody but me. I have come to ask you to tell me the rest about