When she found itout, she was roused to just indignation; but being, after all, but akindly dowager, with a heart softened by much reading of the interminabletales of Madame de Scudery, she only remonstrated with Marguerite, weptover her little romance, and threatened to break the sad news to the Sieurde Roberval, yet never did so. Other ladies were less considerate; it allbroke suddenly upon the angry uncle; the youth was put in irons, andthreatened with flogging, and forbidden to approach the quarter-deckagain. But love laughs at locksmiths; Gosselin was relieved of his ironsin a day or two because he could not be spared from his work in designingthe forthcoming ship, and as both he and Marguerite were of a tolerablydetermined nature, they invoked, through the old nurse, the aid of aHuguenot minister on board, who had before sailed with Cartier to takecharge of the souls of some Protestant vagabonds on the ship, and who wasnow making a second trip for the same reason. That night, after dark, hejoined the lovers in marriage; within twenty-four hours Roberval had heardof it, and had vowed a vengeance quick and sure.The next morning, under his orders, the vessel lay to under the lee of arocky island, then known to the sailors as l'Isle des Demons from thefierce winds that raged round it. There was no house there, no livingperson, no tradition of any; only rocks, sands, and deep forests.
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