The following morning, when we resumed our quiet way in the canoe, le pere Jean asked, "Well, my daughter, did any light come to you through the darkness?" "No, my father, but I have found a little quiet." "That is much. Now I shall ask you to listen to me patiently, for I may say much with which you will not agree, but you will trust me that I only say that which I know to be best. We have every reason to believe a serious descent will be made on Louisbourg in the spring, so that, apart from any other reason, your presence in a town which will in all probability suffer a bombardment, would be unwise and undesirable in the last degree. You have no idea of what war actually means; it is a horror that would haunt you to your dying day." "But, my father, in that case I should at least be by his side. That in itself would mean everything to us both." "That is a point I had not intended to touch on, my daughter. I know the world. I know that men, banished to such exile as that in which M. de Maxwell has lived, change much with the years. Think how you have changed yourself, in happier surroundings than he has known. Think what new connections he may have formed. Did you never think that he--" "Oh, my father, what would you tell me? Do you know M. de Maxwell?" "I have never been in Louisbourg," he answered, somewhat coldly, as if my earnestness had hurt him. "But you do not mean that he may be married?" "He may be. It would surely not be unnatural." "It might not in another man, but in him it would be impossible. He is not as other men." "May I inquire, my daughter, if he ever asked you in marriage?" "No, my father; I told you how he was situate. Besides, my guardian then wished me to marry another." "And you would not?" "I did not," I answered, with some little hauteur, for I held this was beside the matter, and a subject on which even he had no right to question me. "Well, that can make but little difference now," he said, after a short pause. "What does make the difference is that Louisbourg is an impossibility for you at the present. Your best course is to go on to Quebec. I shall give you letters to M. de Montcalm, who is so old and intimate a friend that I may ask him any favour. He will see that you have passage in the first fitting vessel for France. In order that you may not be subject to embarrassing surmises, I hold your best plan is to continue to style yourself Mme. de St. Just; in fact, that has now become a necessity. Once in France, you can, with the influence at your command--for I will see that M. de Montcalm furthers your desire--procure the recall of M. de Maxwell in the spring, and so realise the dream which has now led you so far astray.