"
"It will take over your citadel and dig me out some day," I
retorted hotly.
"What good that? Your life is more to you than Quebec to England."
"No, no," said I quickly; "I would give my life a hundred times
to see your flag hauled down!"
"A freakish ambition," he replied; "mere infatuation!"
"You do not understand it, Monsieur Doltaire," I remarked
ironically.
"I love not endless puzzles. There is no sport in following a maze
that leads to nowhere save the grave." He yawned. "This air is
heavy," he added; "you must find it trying."
"Never as trying as at this moment," I retorted.
"Come, am I so malarious?"
"You are a trickster," I answered coldly.
"Ah, you mean that night at Bigot's?" He smiled. "No, no, you
were to blame--so green. You might have known we were for having
you between the stones."
"But it did not come out as you wished?" hinted I.
"It served my turn," he responded; and he gave me such a smiling,
malicious look that I knew sought to convey he had his way with
Alixe; and though I felt that she was true to me, his cool
presumption so stirred me I could have struck him in the face.
I got angrily to my feet, but as I did so I shrank a little, for
at times the wound in my side, not yet entirely healed, hurt me.
"You are not well," he said, with instant show of curiosity;
"your wounds still trouble you? They should be healed.
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