Part 45 (2/2)

”There seems a great stir in the town,” she said.

They had turned into St. Anne's street and were going toward the church.

”The new Governor General Hull is to come in a few weeks, and the officers have word to look him up a home, for governors have not lived in Detroit before. No doubt there will be fine times among the Americans.”

”And there flies a white flag down at the river's edge--has that something to do with it?”

”Oh, the boat came in last evening. It is one of the great men up at the North, I think in the fur company. But he has much influence over the Indian tribes, and somehow there is a whisper that there may be disaffection and another union such as there was in Pontiac's time, which heaven forbid! He is called the White Chief.”

”The White Chief!” Jeanne stopped short in a maze of astonishment.

”That has nothing to do with thee,” said the priest. He preferred her interest to run in another channel.

”But--I was on his island. I saw his wife and children, you remember.

Oh, I must see him--”

”Not now;”--and her guide put out his hand.

”Oh, no,” and she gave a short laugh. ”As if I would go running after a strange man; a great chief! But he is not an Indian. He is French.”

”I do remember, yes. There seems a great commotion, as if all the s.h.i.+ps had come in. The winter was so long and cold that business is all the more brisk. Here, child, pay a little attention to where you are going.

There is a lack of reverence in you young people that pains me.”

”Pardon me, father.” Jeanne knelt on the church steps and crossed herself. She had run up here in the dark the first night she had been back in Detroit, just to kneel and give thanks, but she had told no one.

Then she walked decorously beside him. There was the Chapel of Retreat, a room where the nuns came and spent hours on their knees. They pa.s.sed that, going down a wide hall. On one side some young girls sat doing fine embroidery for religious purposes. At the end a kind of reception room, and there were several people in this now, two priests and three woman in the garb of Ursuline nuns.

Jeanne glanced around. A sort of chill crept over her. The room was bare and plain except a statue of the Virgin, and some candles and crucifixes. Nearly in the center stood a table with a book of devotions on it.

”This is Jeanne Angelot,” exclaimed Father Rameau. She, in her youth and health and beauty, coming out of the warm and glowing suns.h.i.+ne of May, brought with her an atmosphere and radiance that seemed like a sudden sunrise in the dingy apartment. The three women in the coif and gown of the Ursulines fingered their beads and, after sharp glances at the maid, dropped their eyes, and their faces fell into stolid lines.

Another woman rose from the far corner and her gown made a swish on the bare floor. She came almost up to Jeanne, who shrank back in an inexplicable terror, a motion that brought a spasm of color to the newcomer's face, and a gasp for breath.

She was, perhaps, a little above the medium height, slim alway and now very thin. Her eyes were sunken, with grayish shadows underneath, her cheeks had a hollow where fullness should have been, her lips were compressed in a nearly straight line. She was not old, but asceticism had robbed her of every indication of youth, had made severity the leading indication in her countenance.

”Jeanne Angelot,” she repeated. ”You are quite sure, Father, those garments belonged to her?”

The poor woman felt the secret antipathy and she, too, seemed to contract, to realize the mysterious distance between them, the unlikeness of which she had not dreamed. For in her narrow life of devotion she had endeavored to crucify all human feelings and affections. That was her bounden duty for her girlhood's sin. Girls were poor, weak creatures and their wills counseled them wrongly, wickedly.

She had come to s.n.a.t.c.h this child, the result of her own selfish dreams, her waywardness, from a like fate. She should be housed, safe, kept from evil. The nun, too, had dreamed, although Berthe Campeau had said, ”She is a wild little thing and it is suspected she has Indian blood in her veins.” But it was the rescue of a soul to the service of G.o.d, the soul she was answerable for, not the ardor of human love.

The father made a slow inclination of the head.

”They were upon her that night she was dropped in the Pani's lap, and the card pinned to her. Then two letters curiously wrought upon her thigh.”

”Jeanne, Jeanne, I am your mother.”

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