The King's Warrant: A Story of Old and New France

by Alfred H. Engelbach

Amoahmeh, who had remained at a little distance during this colloquy, now approached Isidore, as if about to speak to him, and as she seemed to hesitate, he gave her a smile of encouragement.

"And the dear young lady who was so kind to me?" said she, inquiringly. "Where is she, monsieur—is she well?"

The smile was gone at once. Isidore's countenance fell, and he buried his face in his hands and groaned in the bitterness of his heart. Amoahmeh shrank lack, and clasping her hands together exclaimed, "Alas! what have I said? I did not—I could not know."

There was a painful silence for a minute or two, then laying her hand timidly on Isidore's arm she said, "Oh, forgive me if I have distressed you—you to whom I owe so much—you who first told the poor lonely Indian girl where it is that we may surely hope to see again those whom we loved, and whom God has taken from us. Ah, it is hard to hear; but monsieur knows that if there is one angel less on earth, there is one more in heaven."

"Girl, girl!" exclaimed Isidore, raising his head, "you do not know what you are saying, or how you torture me. She is not dead—at least, for aught I know—but she is dead to me—lost for ever!"

Then as he marked the distressed and bewildered look with which she listened to him, a look so like the old vacant stare that he remembered too well, a strange fear came over him.

"My good girl," he continued in a soothing tone, "I grieve that I have frightened you, but my sorrow overcame me for the moment. Be comforted—she is yet alive, and, with Heaven's blessing, I dare still hope that some day I may find her again, and that we may yet be happy."

Touched by the deep sigh of relief with which Amoahmeh received these words, and by the tears that followed it, Isidore could not choose but tell her something of what had befallen Marguerite. Debarred as he had latterly been from consolation or sympathy, and without a friend to speak a single word of comfort or encouragement to him, it is scarcely to be wondered at that he should open his heart to any one who would pour balm upon his wounded spirit. But sorrow had already borne some fruit with him, and as he briefly told the story of the misfortunes that had befallen him, no word that savoured of anger or of vengeful feeling passed his lips, and though he could not but speak of grievous wrongs done both to her and to him, he forbore to use hard words against, or even to name, those who had brought this misery upon them.

"See," said he at last, with a melancholy smile, "I have been led, I scarce know how, to tell you a long story about myself; let us now talk of other things."

"But, monsieur," replied Amoahmeh, who had listened to every word with intense interest, "you have scarcely once spoken of monsieur your father. How could he suffer this? He is a great noble in France, surely he could have saved you? Do I not know him to be so good even to a poor stranger, that it is not possible he would let his own son, and a noble one as you are, to become the victim of such a dreadful thing as this lettre de cachet which you tell me of? Did you not see him at the last and tell him what had happened to her? Surely his heart must have melted if he had known all you tell me now."