Isidore was touched with the generous forbearance evinced by such a gentle answer to his rather defiant speech.
"Sir," said he, "His Majesty has done me the honour to issue a lettre de cachet against me, and not for all the world would I place such a friend as you have been in a false position, by asking at your hands what, as the king's lieutenant here, you have scarcely a right to accord to me."
"I accept the reason, and I honour you for it, de Beaujardin," said Montcalm, grasping his hand. "I grieve to find you in such a position, but I am happily not called upon to act on your information, of which, indeed," he added with a smile, "I will choose to doubt the accuracy. It is not for me to pry into your family affairs, but if you desire to confide in me, I will assuredly counsel and help you to the best of my power."
Isidore could not repel an offer of friendship so kindly and generously made, and as briefly as possible he narrated the circumstances that had led to his revisiting Canada. Montcalm listened to him attentively and without interruption.
"You are certainly more sinned against than sinning," said he, when Isidore had concluded, "and if you have in some respects acted hastily, it has been from noble and generous impulses. I take a real interest in the unfortunate young lady, whose father I well remember as a brave and devoted soldier. To restore you to your former position, or even to appoint you to a company, is plainly impossible at present, but I can give you active employment of a kind which will keep you out of the way of being recognised, and should an opportunity offer, I will not forget you."
Isidore was about to express a warm acknowledgment of this kindly assurance, but Montcalm interrupted him: "Wait until I have really done something for you," said he. "And now listen to me. The campaign here is virtually over. With the force at my command, I can do no more than hold Abercromby in check, and prevent him from detaching any considerable force beyond that sent away by him some time since under Bradstreet for the reduction of Fort Frontenac, which has been only too successfully accomplished. I have just heard that the place is taken and the shipping on Lake Ontario captured or destroyed. What could de Noyan do with a hundred and twenty men? The defence of the fort was hopeless in the absence of reinforcements, the absolute necessity for which de Longueuil seems to have neglected to report, unless indeed the Marquis de Vaudreuil purposely withheld them. I suspect as much, and if so, poor de Noyan will be sacrificed, for the king is not likely to hear the true state of the case."
"A disaster indeed," observed Isidore, who in the interest he felt in Montcalm's communication seemed to fancy himself once more the aide-de-camp and personal friend of his old chief. "We have lost, then, the command of the lake, and what is perhaps worse, our hold on the many tribes of Indians who used to make Frontenac their great place of assembly for concluding their contracts and alliances."
"You are right," was the reply. "Beaujardin, or Breton, I see you have not lost your head in spite of your misfortunes. Well, all that is past helping now, and what is almost as bad, we shall lose our hold in the West. General Forbes has long since left Philadelphia with some one thousand five hundred British regulars, chiefly Highlanders, and at least five thousand of those New England militia, for an attack on Fort Duquesne. Forbes is not the man to let himself be decoyed into such a snare as Braddock fell into, but he has to cross the Alleghanies and a tract of a hundred leagues or more through a strange and difficulty country, and that is not done in a week, or a month either. This brings me to what I have to say to you. I wish de Lignières, who is in command at Duquesne to know that I consider the place cannot resist such a force as will be brought against it; he cannot be reinforced, and he will do wisely to dismantle and abandon it, falling back on such points as circumstances may leave him to think best capable of defence. Will you take this message? and if so, how soon can you set out?"
"I am ready, and will start in ten minutes," was the prompt reply.
Montcalm smiled. "You are indeed worthy of a better fate than that which has unhappily befallen you. As for a guide——"