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It has now been a week since she asked for you. When she does I will, as usual, telegraph you. "With many thanks for your kindness to us all, "Very respectfully yours, "Mary Casson." Selwyn read this letter sitting before the fire in the living-room, feet on the fender, pipe between his teeth. It was the first day of absolute rest he had had in a long while.
Casson had been revolving in his mind for the last five minutes; but when he had partly solved it by taking his hands out of his pockets, and thrusting them into the armholes of his waistcoat, by throwing his head on one side, and providing himself with an air of contemptuous indifference to whatever might fall under his notice, his thoughts were diverted by the approach of the horseman whom we lately saw pausing to have another look at our friend Adam, and who now pulled up at the door of the Donnithorne Arms.
A satisfied look shot up in his face, and then with an almost impossible softness he drew the bow across the strings, getting a distant delicate note, which seemed to float and tenderly multiply upon itself a variation, indeed, of the tune which De Casson had played. A rapt look came into his eyes.
"Only this, madame: he may be retaken and " "And then? What then?" she cried. "Upon what happens then," he as drily as regretfully added, "I shall have no power." But to the quick searching prayer, the proud eloquence of the woman, the governor, bound though he was to secresy, could not be adamant. "There is but one thing I can do for you," he said at last. "You know Father Dollier de Casson?"
She did ask for a sleigh to replace the phaeton, and Selwyn managed to get one for her; and Miss Casson, one of the nurses, wrote him how delighted Alixe had been, and how much good the sleighing was doing her. "Yesterday," continued the nurse in her letter, "there was a consultation here between Drs. Vail, Wesson, and Morrison as you requested.
Berkley heard his name called out, and, looking up, saw Casson, astride a huge horse, signalling him eagerly from his saddle. "Who in hell have you got there?" he asked, pushing his horse up to the litter. "By God, it's Colonel Arran," he added in a modified voice. "Is he very bad, Berkley?" "I don't know. Can't you stop one of those ambulances, Jack?
Still they did not lie down to rest; they were waiting for De Casson. He came before a ray of sunshine had pierced the leaden light. Tall, massive, proudly built, his white hair a rim about his forehead, his deep eyes watchful and piercing, he looked a soldier in disguise, as indeed he was to-day as much a soldier as when he fought under Turenne forty years before.
He was right; everything went to Berkley, as usual, who laughed and turned a dissipated face to Casson. "Cold decks?" he suggested politely. "Your revenge at your convenience, Jack." Casson declined. Cortlandt, in his brilliant zouave uniform, stood up and stretched his arms until the scarlet chevrons on the blue sleeves wrinkled into jagged lightning.
Berkley was still red; he lay in the grass on his stomach, watching the big cloud pile on the horizon. "You know," said Casson, "that part of our army stretches as far as that smoke. We're the rear-guard." "Listen to the guns," said Wye, pretending technical familiarity even at that distance. "They're big fellows those Dahlgrens and Columbiads "
For France lay far from Montreal, and the priest-musician was infinitely farther off: the miles which the Church measures between the priest and his lay boyhood are not easily reckoned. But such as Dollier de Casson must have a field for affection to enrich. You cannot drive the sap of the tree in upon itself. It must come out or the tree must die-burst with the very misery of its richness.
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