Some terrible fate might overtake his gay pilgrimage to empire, and leave him lost, abandoned, in a desert of ruin.
Why not give up the adventure, and come to this quiet, and this good peace, so shutting out the stir and violence of the world?
All at once Madame Chalice came into his thoughts, swam in his sight, and he knew that what he felt for this peasant girl was of one side of his nature only.

All of him worth the having--was any worth the having?
responded to that diffusing charm which brought so many men to the feet of that lady of the Manor, who had lovers by the score: from such as the Cure and the avocat, gentle and noble, and requited, to the young Seigneur, selfish and ulterior, and unrequited.
He got to his feet quietly.

No, he would make a decent exit, in triumph or defeat, to honour the woman who was standing his friend.

Let them, the British Government at Quebec, proceed against him; he would have only one trouble to meet, one to leave behind.

He would not load this girl with shame as well as sorrow.