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Of course, the news spread. One gathers that Madame Lavigne rather gave herself airs. But the neighbours shook their heads, and the child grew up lonely and avoided. Fortunately, the cottage was far from other houses, and there was always the great moor with its deep hiding-places. Father Jean was her sole playmate.
Monsieur Lavigne, in a state of intense excitement, posted them in such a fashion as to surround the whole house, save for a large space left vacant in front of the little hole on a level with the ground, through which the cellar derived its supply of air. Monsieur Lavigne struck the trap-door a blow with his foot, and called: "I wish to speak to the Prussian officer!" The German did not reply.
Often the good man, returning from some late visit of mercy with his lantern and his stout oak cudgel, would pause and listen to a wandering voice. It was never near enough for him to hear the words, and the voice was strange to him, though he knew it could be no one else. Madame Lavigne would shrug her shoulders. How could she help it?
Then, about eight o'clock in the morning, a voice came from the vent-hole "I want to speak to the French officer." Lavigne replied from the window, taking care not to put his head out too far: "Do you surrender?" "I surrender." "Then put your rifles outside." A rifle immediately protruded from the hole, and fell into the snow, then another and another, until all were disposed of.
"That you wished to God you were a widower?" "Well, I mean it." "Good Lord!" There is a gap of silence only broken when Captain Bingo says heavily: "Then you did marry the Lavigne after all? When was it " "We'd pulled off the marriage at the local Registrar's a fortnight before you came down with his wire." "By the Living Tinker, then it was a genuine honeymoon after all!"
Gummidge and his wife were clinging to the bowlders in midstream, and with some difficulty they joined us. But Lavigne had disappeared and poor Moralle lay motionless on the opposite bank, apparently dead. Cuthbert Mackenzie's villainy had cost us dear. At first, huddled there together on the rocky spit of land, we stared at one another in dazed silence.
We all stopped, and Lavigne, one of the voyageurs, left the canoe to his comrades and took the weapon from my hand. He examined it with keen and grave interest. "It is just such a knife as the men of the Northwest Company carry," he declared. "Yes, you are right," assented Gummidge; and I agreed with him.
Father Jean one takes him to have been a tolerant, gently wise old gentleman could see no harm. That is, if Madame Lavigne could afford the luxury. Maybe it was a good fairy. Would bring her luck. And certain it is that the cackling of Madame's hens was heard more often than before, and the weeds seemed fewer in the little patch of garden that Madame Lavigne had rescued from the moor.
It seemed wonderfully contented, and Madame Lavigne thought the best thing to do would be to undress it and put it to bed, and then go on with her knitting. She would consult Father Jean in the morning and take his advice. She had never seen such fine clothes.
Or, break your promise to that dead man, and tell her as he would have had you tell her, remember! as he would have had you tell her! that when he asked her hand in marriage, he was the wedded husband of the dancer, Lessie Lavigne!" He knew where she was leading him to Beauvayse's grave. The voice kept whispering, urging as they went.
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