Word came back that the nun was too much enfeebled to grant him an interview. But she would receive the child. Jeanne clung to her father and glanced up with entreating eyes.
"I will wait for you. Yes, see her. Hear her story first." The child followed the sister reluctantly. Sieur Angelot, who had been standing, now took a seat.
"I should like to see the trinkets you spoke of—and the clothes," he said with an air of authority.
Father Rameau brought them. Father Gilbert and the sister retired to an adjoining room.
"Yes," the Sieur remarked, "this is our miniature. It was done in Boston. And the ring was my gift to the child when she was a year old; it was much too big," and he smiled. "And the little garments. You are to be thanked most sincerely for keeping them so carefully. Tell me something about the life of the child."
Father Rameau had been so intimately connected with it, that he was a most excellent narrator. The episode with the Bellestres and Monsieur's kindly care, the efforts to subdue in some measure the child's wildness and passion for liberty, which made the father smile, thinking of his own exuberant spirits and adventures, her affection for the Indian woman, her desultory training, that Father Rameau believed now had been a sinful mistake, her strange disappearance—
"That gave me the clew," interrupted his hearer. "By some mysterious chain of events she was brought to her father's house. I was up North at the time, and only recently heard the story. The name Jeanne Angelot roused me. There could not be a mistake. Some miracle must have intervened to save the child. Then I came at once. But you think she—the mother—believes her marriage was a sin?" What if she still cared?
The Sieur asked it with great hesitation. He thought of the proud, loving wife, the spirited, beautiful boys, the dainty little daughter—no, he could not relinquish them.
"She is vowed to the Church now, and is at rest. Nothing you can say will disturb her. The good Bishop of Montreal absolved her from her wrongful vow. While we hold marriage as sacred and indissoluble, it has to be a true marriage and with the sanction of the Church. This had no priestly blessing or benediction. And she repented of it. For years she has been in the service of the Lord."
He was glad to hear this. Down in his heart he knew how she had tormented her tender conscience with vain and rigorous questions and had made herself unhappy in pondering them. But he thought their new life together would neutralize this tendency and bring them closer in unison. Had she, indeed, made such a sad mistake in her feelings as to give him only an enthusiastic but temporary affection, when she was ready to throw up all the beliefs and the training of her youth? But then the convent round looked dreary to her.