As the two girls crept up the slope, under the flickering shadows of the trees, the scene was incredibly solitary and mournful. The path, simply an Indian trail, was long and toilsome. Vegetation was dense, tangled with vines, sombre with gloomy foliage, through which the white light strove to penetrate. Lydia, whose feelings were impressions which rarely deepened into emotion, was rendered helplessly hysterical by terror. All Diane’s faculties were absorbed in a sombre, bewildering excitement, as with the English captive sobbing, panting, clinging to her arm, she made her way through the thicket. Before long she was obliged to support the almost fainting girl. Little did it matter what they endured, if their sufferings might perchance gain the grace to save the young Canadian from a cruel fate. Once the long dewy trail of a creeper caught Diane lightly like the grasp of a restraining hand; a soft rustle among the leaves caused the heart to leap in her breast; that long-drawn cry of a bird which broke the stillness in melancholy cadences might be the signal of danger. At last, gleaming white amidst dark, glossy foliage, arose the cross erected on Mount Royal in a vow to God for the conversion of the savages. Lydia, overcome by fatigue, fear, the night air, the strain and agitation of the expedition, now sank down against a boulder. She had ceased to reason, and only desired rest. The wooded gray slope towered immutably above them, the wind harping in the pines. The moon had dropped below the horizon, familiar objects acquired strangely grotesque forms in the uncertain light, while in the blue sky above trembled a single luminous star. Pressing on, Diane knelt at the foot of the cross. It seemed as though she had at length reached a sure refuge, a power to whose strength and goodness she could confidently appeal. Then her hands clenched and her whole frame began to shake. “It is for du Chesne, for his life, that we have come so far to pray. He is so young and strong; he might be so happy. Holy Virgin Mother, who knowest the secret of all love and suffering, I ask nothing for myself; let me suffer, but spare him.” The sound of her voice seemed to profane the hush of nature. Its tones had acquired a husky shrillness in which there was a note of presaging horror. “They are too holy, the saints—they despise earthly pains and losses—they think only of their own heavenly bliss—they set themselves against us. Oh! how can they look calmly on our suffering? God in heaven, have mercy! or is He also too high and great to care for our poor, miserable concerns? I will sacrifice myself—my life—what does anything matter? If he returns in safety I make a vow to enter the Congregation as a novice, to devote myself to the expiation of my sins; only spare him, oh, God!” Diane writhed and battled for air as a paroxysm of suffocating sobs came upon her; then, worn out with wild heart-broken weeping, she lay at the foot of the cross, motionless and exhausted.