“Because the bounds are set for me. Yet, if I could come again, would I prosper any better? Claire, if my suit is even listened to, there will be messages to the king, and to the Montmorency in France, and a year’s or two years’ delay. As for me, I shall be dead long before then. We can go to the notary this moment. We can go to the cathedral to Father de Casson. We can go forthwith to my boat and start up the St. Lawrence. O my love!”--Dollard’s voice was searching and deep in pleading,--“can you not stoop to this haste for me? I shall carry you into hardship, but carry you like the cross. While we stand here the abbess sends for the bishop; the bishop comes and says, ‘Go back, fair cousin, into the convent; and you, Dollard, whoever you may be, get yourself off to Montreal.’ I could not then urge you against your kinsman’s authority. But now the word is unspoken. Shall we stand here and wait until it is spoken?” “I see no reason why we should, monsieur,” she replied, pink as a flower. “Then you will consent to be married at once?” “There is, I believe, but one staircase,” said Claire. “It would not be pleasant to meet the bishop or Mother Mary of the Incarnation as we go down.” “Let us make haste, therefore,” he deduced from her evasive reply; and haste they made, so that several pairs were kept waiting by the notarial table while the commandant was served. The cathedral of Notre Dame in Quebec stood, and still stands, on the opposite side of the square. It was a massive pile of masonry, compared to the cabins of Lower Town, and held its cross far up in their northern sky. Within were holy dimness and silence, broken only by the footfalls of occasionally coming and going devotees. Though not yet rich in altars and shrines, paintings, and glittering crystal and metal, the young cathedral had its worthy relics, and its humble offerings of tinsel and ribbon-tied paper flowers. The merchant people from Lower Town, and peasants from adjacent river côtes and Laval’s great seigniory, came here to bathe their souls in thoughts of heaven, and to kneel on the pavement beside governor or high dame. At this hour of morning only two persons sat in the church as if waiting for some kind of service. There were three nuns, indeed, kneeling in a row before the chancel rail, their three small red noses just appearing beyond their black veils--noses expressing quiet sanctity. And a confessional was perhaps occupied. But the pair who waited were neither nuns nor penitents. They had taken the usual moisture from the font of holy water, wherein many devout fingers had deposited considerable sediment. They had bowed towards the altar and told their prayers from station to station, and were now anxious to be joined in matrimony lest Dollard should arrive and cut off all chance of collecting the governor’s bounty by his impatient haste.