"Your princes of the Church are statesmen now rather than priests," said the master. "The Abbé La Salle comes of a renowned family. 'Twas said that he is wasted in this colony. I also heard it said--accept the rumour as you will--that his Holiness has set a cross against his name." "What means that?" asked the commandant hastily. "Urbano the Eighth, who, I may tell you, has recently bestowed the title of Eminence upon his Cardinals, having suitably enriched his family and acquired the Duchy of Urbino, now seeks strong men, priests who are fighters rather than scholars, to aid him in the execution of his plans, and he who has the cross set against his name may be assured of sudden promotion. A canon of Notre Dame, who is much in favour with Cardinal Richelieu, informed me that La Salle may immediately be recalled. His Holiness will raise a parish priest to the cardinalate, through the grades of canon, dean, and bishop, in a month or less, according to his necessity for that man's help." "The _St. Wenceslas_ now bears for home with my despatches," said Roussilac moodily. "I have mentioned the abbé as instrumental in holding heretics at bay." "His Holiness loves a fighter," muttered D'Archand significantly, as he opened another flask of Burgundy. A light glimmered here and there when Roussilac made his way homeward, and the murmur of the forest brushed his ears as he passed. The news of another man's advancement hurt his selfish nature as though it were a premonition of his own failure. He hesitated where the path split, then hastened to his house, entered, and immediately found himself in the presence of his aunt, who awaited his coming, knitting her fingers in the lamplight. "So!" she snapped, her little face hard and wrinkled like a sour apple. "We have now open treachery at headquarters. Treachery against Church and State. You, the representative of the King, the upholder of the faith! You shall be stripped of your power and be disgraced. And I will walk a hundred miles barefoot, if there be need, to see sentence executed upon you." Her attack was ill-timed. The commandant was then in no mood to bear with a mutinous subject, though she had been his own mother. "Out of my sight," he said fiercely. "Out, I say. Madame, my forbearance is at an end, and I will be obeyed. Would you have me forget that you are a woman and a relative?" "Since you have forgot your duty to God and the King, forget that also," screamed the little woman. "Seducer, what have you done with my daughter? Where have you hidden her? Abductor! You shall learn what it means to defy Holy Church. Tell me, where have you taken her?" Roussilac's anger cooled at that, and he lowered his voice as he answered: "I left my cousin not three hours ago in the place where she is confined as an impenitent by the judgment of the Abbé Laroche. There you shall find her."