"Look at these clothes. They will tell you if I am restored to the Forty-sixth." "So that was more than Amherst could bring himself to stomach?" "On the contrary, he gave me my choice. But I am resigning my commission." "Eh? Well, I suppose your monstrous luck with the dispatches had earned you his leniency. You told him of Fort Frontenac, I presume?" "I did not tell him of that. But someone else had taken care that he should learn something of it." "The girl? You don't mean to tell me that your luck stepped in once again?" "Mademoiselle Diane must have guessed that I meant to tell the General all. She left a sealed letter which he opened in my presence. As for my luck," continued John--and now it was his turn to speak bitterly--"you may think how I value it when I tell you how the letter ended. With the General's help, it said, she was hiding herself for ever; and as a man of honour I must neither seek her nor hope for sight of her again." And Dick's comment finally proved to John that between them these two years had fixed a gulf impassable. "Well, and you ought to respect her wishes," he said. "She interfered to save you, if ever a woman saved a man." He was striding to and fro again on the bank. "And what will you do now?" he demanded, halting suddenly. "The General thinks Murray will be the new Governor, and promises to recommend me to him. There's work to be done in reducing the outlying French forts and bringing the Indians to reason. Probably I shall be sent west." "You mean to live your life out in Canada?" "I do." "Tell me at least that you have given up hope of this girl." John flushed. "I shall never seek her," he answered. "But while life lasts I shall not give up hope of seeing her once again." "And I am waiting for my captaincy," said Dick grimly; "who with less than half your luck would have commanded a regiment!" He swung about suddenly to confront a corporal--John's critical friend of the picket--who had come up the bank seeking him. "Beg pardon, sir," said the corporal, saluting, "but there's a Canadian below that has found a corpse along-shore, and wants to bury him on his own account." "That will be Bateese Guyon," said John. They walked together down the shore to the spot where Bateese bent over his brother. "This is the man," said he, "who led us through the Roches Fendues. Respect his dead body, Dick." "I hope," said Dick, half-lifting his hat as he stood by the corpse, "I can respect a man who did a brave deed and died for his country." CHAPTER XXVII. PRES-DE-VILLE. Fifteen years have gone by, and a few months. In December 1775, on the rock of Quebec, Great Britain clung with a last desperate grip upon Canada, which on that September day in 1760 had passed so completely into her hands.