CHAPTER XVI.
I cannot love him; Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble.
* * * * * -- -- -- -- but yet I cannot love him, He might have took his answer long ago.
SHAKSPEARE.
Rumors of M.de la Tour's defeat and capture, attended with the usual exaggerations, were not slow in reaching fort St.John's; and they could not fail of producing a strong excitement in the garrison, and of rendering those more closely connected with him, deeply anxious respecting the result.

Madame de la Tour had been attacked by a severe illness, from which she was slowly recovering; and Lucie dreaded to impart to her the tidings, which from her own feelings, she was assured would excite the most painful solicitude.

But her aunt's penetrating eye soon detected the concealment, and she could no longer withhold a minute detail of the reports which had reached her ears.

They were, however, received by Mad.

la Tour with unexpected firmness.