“Not at all, not at all!” he protested hurriedly. “I have just some natural Hielan' interest in affairs of intrigue, and you have not (by your leave) had my advantages of the world, for I have seen much of the evil as well as the good of it, and never saw a woman's hand in aught yet but I wondered what mischief she was planning. There's much, I'm telling you, to be learned about a place like Fontainebleau or Versailles, and I advantaged myself so well of my opportunities there that you could not drive a hole but I would put a nail in it, as the other man said.” “Well,” said I, “my hope is that I may never meet the woman again, and that's without a single angry feeling to her.” “You need not fear about that,” said he. “The thing that does not lie in your road will never break your leg, as the other man said, and I'll be surprised if she puts herself in your way again now that her need for you is done. A score of your friends in Dunkerque could have told you that she was daft about him. I might be vexed for you if I did not know from your own mouth of the other one in Mearns.” “We'll say nothing about that,” I says, “for that's a tale that's by wi'. She's lost to me.” He gave a little chuckle and had that turn in the eye that showed he had a curious thought. “What are you laughing at?” I asked. “Oh, just an old word we have in the Language, that with a two-deer stag-hound it will be happening often that a stag's amissing.” “There's another thing I would like you to tell me out of your experience,” I said, “and that is the reason for the Prince's doing me a good turn with the one hand and a bad one with the other; using his efforts to get me the lieutenancy and at the same time putting a man on my track to quarrel with me?” “It's as plain as the nose on your face,” he cried. “It was no great situation he got you when it was in the Regiment d'Auvergne, as you have discovered, but it would be got I'll warrant on the pressure of the Walkinshaw one. Just because she had that interest in you to press him for the post, and you were in the trim to keep up a correspondence with her (though in his own interest, as he must know, so far as she was concerned), he would want you out of the road. Love is like lairdship, Hazel Den, and it puts up very poorly with fellowship, as the other man said.” I thought of the occasions when his Royal Highness had seen me at night in front of a certain window in the Rue de la Boucherie, and concluded that Kilbride in this too had probably hit the mark. And so we passed through Holland in many changes of weather that finally turned to a black frost, which covered the canals with ice whereon skated the Dutch folks very pleasantly, but we were the losers, as the rest of our journey had to be made by post. It was well on in the winter when we got to Helvoetsluys. CHAPTER XXXVI FATHER HAMILTON IS THREATENED BY THE JESUITS AND WE ARE FORCED TO FLY AGAIN