Chapter XI.

"Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell."
-- _Romeo and Juliet._

"Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes."
-- _Othello._

Whilst the news that Claude Montigny had given,
to a girl of dubious birth and uncertain social position,
the heart, for the possession of which the supercil-
lious Seraphine Duchatel had so long striven in vain,
was disturbing the souls of the Montboeuf Manorhouse,
the seigneur of Mainville, ill at ease, and apprehen-
sive of a hasty and irremediable matrimonial step
on the part of his son, started for Montreal again to
visit the intractable advocate.

Later in the same day, Claude also took horse, and
rode towards the banks of the Ottawa, where he ar-
rived at dusk, and crossing at the ferry from the
main to Sainte Anne, he thence, solitary, and filled
with chequered thoughts, continued his way, whilst
the ground grew dimmer and yet dimmer, and star
after star stole out; till, as the moon rose slowly in
the glimmering air, he reached the neighbourhood of
dim Mount Royal.

At the same hour that the large bateau was heav-
ing its way over the vexed flood of the meeting
waters of the Saint Lawrence and the Ottawa, four
horsemen crossed a rustic bridge, that led from the
mainland to the opposite, or eastern extremity of the

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