Chamilly addressed firm words to the disappointed electorate: "I seek not my own cause, friends. It is yours in which I do this thing and do you, too, give all for country's honor. Lose not heart. Work on, like iron figures, receiving blows without feeling them. Be we young in our strength and hope, as Truth our mistress is perennial. Accept from me who according to the rule of faint hearts ought to be most crushed by our failure, the motto, "_Encouraged_ by disaster!" CHAPTER XLI. FIAT JUSTITIA "I wonder at you!--I wonder at you!" exclaimed Chrysler, pacing the drawing-room of the Manor-house, to his friend, "What will be the result of it?" "Cher Monsieur," Haviland replied. "I have done my duty and what have I to do with events? What is Dormilliere county and a year or two of the consequences of this election? I do not live in them or of them." The face of the far-seeing god himself, whose statue stood once more near, could scarcely show less regret than the easy, indomitable countenance of Chamilly; yet that his nerves had been strained to a severe pitch, lines of exhaustion upon it clearly told, and his restless, reckless movements from one spot and position to another made his friend anxious. A raw wind storm had risen quickly from the east and whistled without. He advanced to the window and threw both its curtains wide apart, revealing under an obscured snatch of struggling moonlight, the heavens covered with rapid-moving clouds, and the poplars opposite bending their vague shapes beneath the wind,--the beginning of one of those storms which come up from the Gulf, and overrun the whole region for days. "I should like to be on the River now," he remarked exultingly. Madame entered at the moment and heard him. "Be quiet, Chamilly," chided the Seigneuresse. "Alors, Alors," he said impatiently, as if casting about for something active to do, and left the room. "Madame de Bois-Hebert," Chrysler said, "have you news from Mademoiselle Josephte?" "That young person," replied she, "has descended to the plane of her condition: I have no further interest in her." But the devout lady sighed. The Gulf storm lowered steadily and disagreeably all next day and the visitor saw nothing of Chamilly, who kept in his room until the evening. But there was one excitement which occupied everyone else's attention: "Who do you think struck Francois?" Chrysler said to Zotique at the Circuit Court House. "The Bonhomme has tracked Spoon through every bush and bay on the coast, and has caught him getting aboard the steamboat at Petite Argentenaye," the Registrar replied.