There was a flutter among the ladies. The queen turned and rose. A
half-startled look of comprehension came to her face. And out stepped
Mistress Hortense from the group behind.

"Your Majesties," she stammered, "I do not want the lands----"

"Nor the lieutenant," laughed the king.

"Your Majesties," she said. She could say no more.

But with the swift intuition of the lonely woman's loveless heart,
Queen Catherine read in my face what a poor trader might not speak.
She reached her hand to me, and when I would have saluted it like any
dutiful subject, she took my hand in hers and placed Hortense's hand in
mine.

Then there was a great laughing and hand-shaking and protesting, with
the courtiers thronging round.

"Ha, Radisson," Barillon was saying, "you not only steal our forts--you
must rifle the court and run off with the queen's maid!"

"And there will be two marriages at the sailor's wedding," said the
queen.


It was Hortense's caprice that both marriages be deferred till we
reached Boston Town, where she must needs seek out the old Puritan
divine whom I had helped to escape so many years ago.