As they descended into Prince Town Grace proposed to visit the church now growing there. She knew one Lieutenant Mainwaring, a young officer in command at these works; and now, glad enough to be of service and display his little power, the lad himself escorted Miss Malherb and Peter Norcot into a scene of stir and activity.

The Frenchmen chattered and sang to the clink of their trowels; while within, more thoughtful and more silent, a hundred Americans were engaged upon carpentering and carving in wood and stone. The strangers regarded Grace with curiosity. Save for the market folk, it was long since any among them had seen a woman, and this lovely girl awoke invisible emotion. Many a heart quickened, then slowed at the sight of her. She wakened the thought of women in lonely bosoms; she bridged rolling oceans with a sigh. Some cursed as memory probed their helplessness; some sneered; some winked and whistled and kissed their hands; some, sensitively conscious, turned away to hide their rags from these well-clothed and prosperous visitors.

They were soldiers and sailors, and they exhibited a wide variety of spiritual and mental attributes. Many among them crept about like thin ghosts clad in motley; a few looked stout and happy, despite their shameful clothing; some toiled in sulky and wooden silence; others maintained a gay and alert demeanour. They wore yellow roundabout jackets, mostly too small, rough waistcoats and pantaloons, shirts, caps of wool, and shoes made from list and wood, that gaped at every seam. Those amongst them whose shoes had fallen to pieces, cased their feet in strips of blanket, and so limped through the dreary time until authority should refurnish them.

Young Mainwaring was called away at this moment, and before he departed, the lad turned to an elderly American with grey hair and a distinguished bearing, and asked him a favour.

"May I beg you to show Miss Malherb and this gentleman round the works, Commodore Miller?" said Mainwaring; and the prisoner bowed a grave assent. In looking at this man\'s sad eyes and noble face one forgot the ridiculous rags that covered him.

"Come this way, young lady," he said. "You see our labours prosper. \'Twill be a monument for the generations that follow us. Our dust will mingle with this desert and be forgotten; our handiwork will remain."

Suddenly as they proceeded a cry from overhead made Grace stop, start back, and look upward. The warning saved her life, for six inches in front of her breast an object cut the air, and striking at the girl\'s feet upon the unpaved aisle, buried itself head first in the earth. It was a heavy chisel that had dropped from a beam and just missed Grace\'s head by inches. A cry rose on several lips; some shouted a curse at a man aloft on the beam from which the chisel had fallen; and Commodore Miller cried to him—

"Good God, Stark; what have you done?"

"Nothing—nothing at all," said Grace quickly. "I am not touched."

The man responsible for this accident was already half-way to the ground. He descended a rope ladder so swiftly as to endanger his own neck, and a moment later stood white and trembling before Grace Malherb.

"You stupid fellow," said Mr. Norcot; "\'twas within a hair\'s-breadth of her life."

"I know it," answered the man. He was young and very tall, with a clean-shorn face and curling brown hair. "I can only ask you to forgive me. I turned suddenly and my foot struck the chisel."

"There\'s nothing to forgive," said Grace. "\'Twas your voice arrested me. If you hadn\'t shouted, I should not be here now; so I owe you nothing but gratitude."

She smiled at him, and the youngster\'s colour came back to his cheek. Young Mainwaring, who had just returned, bustled forward with his sword clanking as the sailor spoke.

"You\'re good and brave, young mistress; and you understand. \'Twas a noble way to pardon me. A clumsy fool thanks you from his heart."

He was turning away when Grace spoke again, and blushed a little as she did so.

"Is that your chisel, sir?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Will you give it to me? May I keep it?"

Taking it from the hand of Commodore Miller, who had pulled it out of the earth, the girl looked at its two-inch blade and glittering edge.

"I should like to keep it," she repeated. "It ought to make me feel humble and grateful when I look upon it."

"I pray you keep it, then. And I shall thank God every time that I miss it," said the young man quietly.

Norcot was talking to Mainwaring aside, and in the silence that followed these words, his voice, unfortunately for himself, came directly to the American prisoner\'s ear.

"Surely not. The Devil draws the line somewhere. One would never presume to suggest a deliberate intention to murder an innocent girl."

The words came clear and cold; then, like a thunderbolt, a heavy fist fell between Peter\'s eyes, and he was on his back half unconscious. From trembling fear, from emotion almost prayerful at the thought of what might have happened, from frank and absolute sorrow for his carelessness, the young American leapt suddenly into ungovernable and blazing wrath. His very body seemed to expand and tower above the men around him. The Commodore leapt forward, but Stark shook him off like a child. "There!" he shouted, so that the naked walls rang with echoes. "Take that, whoever you are! To hint such a foul crime from your foul soul against an American!"

"Who\'s this lunatic? Arrest him," cried Mainwaring, and several soldiers hastened forward.

"Cecil Stark is his name—a sailor and a leader in Prison No. 4," said a sergeant.

"Yes, Cecil Stark of Vermont," answered the lad passionately. "Your General Burgoyne knew the name. \'Twas my kinsman that made him surrender and so caused Louis of France and the civilised world to acknowledge America free of your bullying, braggart nation. To hint at murder! You scoundrel—if you\'re a gentleman, you\'ll meet me; but you\'re not."

"Candidly," said Mr. Norcot, who was now restored to consciousness and sat on the ground with his hand over his eyes. "Candidly, I don\'t want to meet you again. You are young, and evidently Dartmoor has not tamed your fiery spirit. Nor has it polished your nautical wits. You strike before you hear—like your great nation. Tut, tut! My nose is broken. I was just declaring on my honour that to credit you with malice was madness. \'Twas this gentleman here who suspected that you dropped the chisel of set purpose."

"You said it!" exclaimed Stark, turning upon Lieutenant Mainwaring.

"I did, and I repeat it; and don\'t look at me with that insolent expression, or you\'ll repent it. \'Tis quite likely this was no accident."

The American regarded the little officer with contempt and astonishment.

"You\'re a knave to think that; and a coward to say it. At least you don\'t believe him, young mistress? I\'d give up all hope of freedom, or heaven either, if I thought that any woman held me so vile."

"No woman, and no man either, would believe it," said Grace calmly, and Mainwaring\'s face flamed.

"Why, then, I\'m content," declared Stark. "As for this red-coated monkey, he\'s neither one nor t\'other and his opinion don\'t matter."

"Take him to the cachot!" cried the indignant soldier in a fury. "Away with him—insolent hound! We\'ll see what a few days of bread and water will do for him."

"And \'tis trash like this that they put into power over honest men!" said the prisoner, with great show of scorn. "In America no man can command others until he has learned to command himself."

"And did you use to command, my young hero?" asked Peter, who had now risen to his feet again.

Cecil Stark turned and laughed as he marched off with half a dozen soldiers for an escort.

"No, sir. You\'ll guess why. I\'m a fool. Your nose will tell you that. But I\'m learning. I shall be free again some day. Then I\'ll try to be wise. Meantime I beg you ten thousand pardons that I hit the wrong man. If \'tis ever in my power, I\'ll make generous amends."

He departed, and among the guard his great stature was revealed, for he towered above them.

"What a stinging sermon against disinterestedness," said Mr. Norcot, still patting his wounded face. "Yet \'tis nothing beside your escape. If you had died—my light would have gone out. Henceforth I should have lived with Petrarch under my pillow: \'To Laura—I mean Gracie—in death.\'

"\'For I was ever yours; of you bereft,
Full little do I reck all other care.\'"


"We\'d better go back to our horses," she answered. "............