But Gabriel had neither eyes nor ears for the priest. He freed Margot from his embrace indeed, but held her hand firmly in his, and flushed and smiling gazed upon the small, downcast face bright with rapture. “It is with me thou comest, is it not so, _ma cousine_?” he said softly, bending over her. She lifted her dark eyes, and for a long minute they rested on his, heedless of the objurgations of Le Loutre. Then she remembered, and her face grew suddenly so pale that its wanness struck Gabriel with a great fear. How much, ah, how much, she had suffered. He seemed to see it all now. “I have promised—I dare not break my sacred word.” Her voice was barely audible. “It is true,” cried the priest, thrusting himself so abruptly betwixt the cousins as to compel Gabriel to drop the hand of the girl, “she has promised to return to the true fold, and as the daughter of mother church the touch of the heretic is defilement.” Gabriel lifted his fair head with the old fearless air that had ever exasperated the priest, while winning his reluctant admiration. “It may be that I am no longer a boy,” he said coolly, “at least I am no longer of your church; and by all laws human and divine, she being my next of kin, this maiden has a right to my protection. Also, _M. l’Abbé_, you are upon English ground.” He pointed to the thin line of redcoats deploying upon a low hill some distance away. The face of Le Loutre was convulsed with hatred. “The more reason that we swiftly depart,” he said. “Come, daughter, bear in mind thy vow.” Gabriel’s blue eyes flashed as Margot had so often seen them do in the past. She pressed by the _abbé_, and taking her cousin’s outstretched hands, said in a low, persuasive voice: “Gabriel, _mon ami_, it is even so. I promised to go with _M. l’Abbé_ in order to save his life; there was no other way. But the promise was only for the day; I would make no further vow.” Le Loutre watched the girl uneasily, for had she not refused to swear upon the cross, and what was a mere promise without some appeal to superstition? He could not comprehend the force of a higher influence than that of mere symbolism. Pale now as Margot herself Gabriel moved aside with her, holding her hands, and looking down into the pathos of those dark eyes which possessed, even as in the days when they were children together, power to still the tumult in his breast—the rebellion of a nature more passionate than her own. “It is but for this one day, _mon_ Gabriel,” she murmured. “But for this one day!” he repeated. “And our force is small, and God alone knows where we may be on the morrow. Margot, must it be?” “Gabriel, it was thou who didst first tell me, when thy heart began to change toward our church, that to break the promised word was to lie, and that to lie was deadly sin. Oh, _mon cousin_, dost thou not remember?” “I do, I do!” he groaned, passing his hand over his eyes in unbearable anguish.