"Another year we shall go ourselves," announced Laurent Giffard to his wife. "We have enough now to make ourselves comfortable, and I doubt if the company can weather through. At all events I shall be glad to be well out of it. Art thou glad of the prospect?"
"There is great commotion with the King and his mother, and between Huguenot and Catholic," she made answer slowly. "Does the Sieur Destournier throw up his schemes in disgust as well?"
"Ah, I think he is wedded to the soil. The Governor trusts everything to him, and Du Parc, and both are capable men. But truth to tell I have lost faith in the colony. I hear the Virginians and the Bostonnais are doing much better. France cannot, or will not, spend the money, nor send the men to put the place on a sure foundation. The Indians grow more troublesome. They hate being meddled with by the priests. They take wives when they want them, and send them away when they are tired of them. They torture prisoners—some day the priests will have a taste of it themselves."
"They are all horrible," she said, with a shiver.
"And we will go back to La Belle France. I fancy I can manage a sort of preferment with Dubissay, who has the ear of the Queen mother at present. At all events I am tired of this turmoil, and thou, ma mie, art wasting thy beauty in this savage land."
He stooped and kissed her. If he had been ready last year, she would have hailed the prospect with delight. Why did it not seem so attractive now?
"And the child?" she asked presently, her eyes fixed on the floor.
Was the tone indifferent?
"How much dost thou love her, ma mie? At first thy heart was sore for the loss of our own, but time heals all such wounds. Destournier left no stone unturned to discover her parentage, and failed. I think she has been some one's love child. True we could give her our name, and with a good dowry she could marry well. But she will want some years of convent training to tone her down."
"And if we should leave her here? Though they say Miladi de Champlain comes over soon, and there may be a court with maids of honor."