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"But she has been! you have loved her at some time or other! and she is now living on the scraps and leavings of former affection. I am never deceived, Chevalier!" continued she, glancing down at him, a wild light playing under her long eyelashes like the illumined under-edge of a thundercloud. "But how in St. Picot's name did you arrive at all this knowledge, Mademoiselle?"
The unfortunate Picot's fingers were crushed by means of an old gun and a screw-driver, his feet were burned in the presence of the officers of the guard. He revealed nothing. "He has borne everything with criminal resignation," the judge-inquisitor, Thuriot, wrote to Réal; "he is a fanatic, hardened by crime.
"I have had many engagements which have kept me away from my office lately; but I attended to that matter; everything has been done right, and is now in the hands of the secretary." "Oh! how good monsieur is! I pray God to bless him," said the pious woman, clasping her hands. "Bless me! do you have business with Madame Lambert?" said Cerizet; "you never told me that. Are you Pere Picot's counsel?"
The presence seemed so real that mustering all strength, I turned turned to see Le Borgne, the one-eyed, sitting on a log-end with a stolid, watchful, unreadable look on his crafty face. Bluish shafts of light struck athwart the dark. A fire burned against the far wall. The smoke had the pungent bark smell of the flame that used to burn in M. Picot's dispensary.
"Restored!" thought I. And M. Picot must have seen my surprise, for he drew back to his shell like a pricked snail. Observing that the wind was chill, he bade me an icy good-night. I had no desire to pry into M. Picot's secrets, but I could not help knowing that he had unbended to me because he was interested in the fur trade.
The spell of a presence was there. Then it came home to me what a desperate game the French doctor had played. That sword-thrust in the dark meant death; so did the attack on Ben Gillam's fort; and was it not Le Borgne, M. Picot's Indian ally, who had counselled the massacre of the sleeping tribe? You must not think that M. Picot was worse than other traders of those days!
What a hushing of voices and cleansing of wits and disusing of oaths was there after my little lady came to our rough Habitation! I mind the first Sunday M. Radisson led her out like a queen to the mess-room table. When our voyageurs went upstream for M. Picot's hidden furs, her story had got noised about the fort.
"Madame Lambert!" cried Felix; "why, that's Monsieur Picot's housekeeper; close cap, pale, thin face, speaks always with her eyes lowered, shows no hair?" "That's she," said Minard, "a regular hypocrite!" "Twenty-five thousand francs of savings!" said Felix. "I don't wonder that poor pere Picot is always out of money."
This trouble was the result of M. Picot's threat; but little Rebecca's voice was tinkling on like a bell in a dome. "My father hath the key to their ward. My father saith there is like to be trouble if they do not confess " "Confess!" I broke out. "Confess what? If they confess the lie they will be burned for witchcraft. And if they refuse to confess, they will be hanged for not telling the lie.
Then we lock arms and sweep through space, the northern lights curtaining overhead, the stars for torches, and the blazing comets heralding a way. "The very stars in their courses fight for us," says Hortense. And I, with an earthy intellect groping behind the winged love of the woman, think that she refers to some of M. Picot's mystic astrologies.
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