CHAPTER XVII.
A HUNTER OF BUTTERFLIES I love men, not because they are men, but because they are not women .-- _Queen Christina_.
There was at that time in Montreal a sort of news room and public exchange, which made a place of general meeting.

It was supplied with newspapers and the like, and kept up by subscriptions of the town merchants--a spacious room made out of the old Methodist chapel on St.
Joseph Street.

I knew this for a place of town gossip, and hoped I might hit upon something to aid me in my errand, which was no more than begun, it seemed.

Entering the place shortly before noon, I made pretense of reading, all the while with an eye and an ear out for anything that might happen.
As I stared in pretense at the page before me, I fumbled idly in a pocket, with unthinking hand, and brought out to place before me on the table, an object of which at first I was unconscious--the little Indian blanket clasp.

As it lay before me I felt seized of a sudden hatred for it, and let fall on it a heavy hand.