Claire listened aside to some outer sound, and then exclaimed:
“You did not tell me where the commandant is, Jacques. He has not gone back to his fortress, without me?”
Jacques’s face fell into creases of anguish.
“Madame, he said you were to sleep undisturbed till morning.”
“He should have obtained Mademoiselle de Granville’s consent to that. This is not answering a question I have already repeated to you.”
“Madame, he has taken the Indians and gone in his boat. Soldiers must do all sorts of things, especially commandants. He would not expose you to the dangers of the route by night.”
“I was sure I heard some noise before! You see you are mistaken. He is not yet gone.”
Mellow relief, powerful as sunshine, softened the swarthy pallor of Jacques’s face. He caught his candle from the chimney shelf and jammed its charred wick against a glowing coral knot in the log.
“Madame, that’s m’sieur at the gate. I know his stroke and his call. I’ll bring him up.”
No man can surely say, with all his ancestry at his back and his unproved nature within, what he can or cannot do in certain crises of his life.
“What is it, m’sieur?” exclaimed Jacques as he let Dollard through the gate.
“We went scarce a quarter of a league. I came back because I cannot leave her without telling her; it was a cowardly act!” exclaimed Dollard, darting into the house. “She must go with me to Montreal.”
IF Dollard was surprised at finding Claire standing by the fire dressed for her journey, he gave himself no time for uttering it, but directed Jacques to bring down madame’s boxes and to wake Louise.
“One casket will be enough, Jacques,” countermanded madame; “the one which has been opened. If there is such haste, the others can be sent hereafter. As for my poor Louise, I will not have her waked; this is but her second night’s sleep on land. Some one can be found in Montreal to attend me, and I shall see her again soon.”
Jacques shuffled down from his master’s apartment, carrying the luggage on his shoulder and his candle in one hand. Dollard waited for him, to say aside:
“In three weeks come to Montreal and ask for your lady at the governor’s house. Subject yourself to her orders thenceforward.”
Again his candle on the twisted staircase caused great shadows to stalk through the cellar gloom--Claire’s shadow stretching forward a magnified head at its dense future; Dollard’s shadow towering so high as to be bent at right angles and flattened on the joists above. Once more were the bars put up, this time shutting two inmates out of the seigniory house.