Part 22 (1/2)

At that moment Maurice Joval entered and whispered to the governor.

Frontenac rose.

”Madame,” he said, ”your husband has escaped.” A cry broke from her.

”Escaped! escaped!”

She saw a strange look in the governor's eyes.

”But you have not told me all,” she urged; ”there is more. Oh, your excellency, speak!”

”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 Ca.s.son?”

To her a.s.sent, he added: ”Then go to him. Ask no questions. If anything can be done, he may do it for you; that he will I do not know.”

She could not solve the riddle, but she must work it out. There was the one great fact: her husband had escaped.

”You will do all you can do, your excellency?” she said.

”Indeed, madame, I have done all I can,” he said. With impulse she caught his hand and kissed it. A minute afterwards she was gone with Maurice Joval, who had orders to bring her to the abbe's house--that, and no more.

The governor, left alone, looked at the hand that she had kissed and said: ”Well, well, I am but a fool still. Yet--a woman in a million!” He took out his watch. ”Too late,” he added. ”Poor lady!”

A few minutes afterwards Jessica met the abbe on his own doorstep.

Maurice Joval disappeared, and the priest and the woman were alone together. She told him what had just happened.

”There is some mystery,” she said, pain in her voice. ”Tell me, has my husband been retaken?”

”Madame, he has.”

”Is he in danger?”

The priest hesitated, then presently inclined his head in a.s.sent.

”Once before I talked with you,” she said, ”and you spoke good things.

You are a priest of G.o.d. I know that you can help me, or Count Frontenac would not have sent me to you. Oh, will you take me to my husband?”

If Count Frontenac had had a struggle, here was a greater. First, the man was a priest in the days when the Huguenots were scattering to the four ends of the earth. The woman and her husband were heretics, and what better were they than thousands of others? Then, Sainte-Helene had been the soldier-priest's pupil. Last of all, there was Iberville, over whom this woman had cast a charm perilous to his soul's salvation. He loved Iberville as his own son. The priest in him decided against the woman; the soldier in him was with Iberville in this event--for a soldier's revenge was its mainspring. But beneath all was a kindly soul which intolerance could not warp, and this at last responded.

His first words gave her a touch of hope. ”Madame,” he said, ”I know not that aught can be done, but come.”