Without noticing the covert allusion, Zulma answered promptly:
"The American officers are all gentlemen. They admire bravery and devotion wherever they see it, and they would not take unfair advantage of any enemy. But that is neither here nor now. Answer me. Do you persevere in your intention or not?"
"Mademoiselle, Joseph Bouchette owes his liberty to you," said Batoche, and, bowing, he walked out of the room. Sieur Sarpy attempted to detain him, but without success. He went silently and swiftly as he had come.
An author has said that a wonderful book might be written on Forgotten Heroes. Joseph Bouchette was one of them. By piloting the Saviour of Canada in an open boat from Montreal to Quebec, he performed the most brilliant and momentous single service during the whole war of invasion. And yet his name is hardly known. No monument of any kind has been raised to his memory. Nay more, after the lapse of a hundred years, the material claims of the Bouchette family have been almost entirely ignored.
[IV.]
[PRACTICAL LOVE.]
When Zulma found herself alone in her room, she opened the note of Cary Singleton. She noticed that it was moist and crumpled in her hand. It had been a sore trial to wait so long before acquainting herself with its contents, but she felt, as some sort of compensation, that it had served to nerve her to the animated dialogue which she had held with Batoche.
"That paper," she said, "urged me to be brave. I knew that he who had written it would have expressed the same sentiments under the circumstance."
The note was very brief and simple. It read thus: