Jeanne leaned forward and peered into the other’s face. “I think you are mistaken,” she said.
“I know it to be true,” Lendert continued.
Jeanne laughed and leaned back again against the railing of the porch. “Then we do not speak of the same family. There are several of the name.”
There was silence again. Alaine above there, with the whispering leaves saying a hundred things to her, leaned farther out.
After a long pause Lendert spoke again, as with difficulty. “This young lady’s name was Alaine Hervieu, the adopted daughter of one Louis Mercier and his wife Michelle. I know them all. She saved my life, and—I was ill at their house there in New Rochelle. She disappeared. They mourned her as dead, but she is married, they afterwards learned. I have seen them; they told me. They had just received word from France. She was there, the wife of François Dupont. I would rather she were dead. She is dead to me. She has abjured her faith and will remain among her relatives in France.”
“It is all a lie,” said Jeanne, quietly.
“It cannot be. I saw the letter myself.”
There was a swift running of feet along the hall and down the stair. In the doorway appeared a slight figure, and a voice cried, “Lendert! Lendert! I am not dead! I am not married! I am here!”
Down went the great pipe with a clatter to the ground. The sweet, shrill, imploring tones rang out upon the May night. With one stride Lendert reached her where she stood poised upon the door-sill. “Alaine!” he cried. “Oh, thou good God! It is Alaine!” And then Jeanne stepped in between them, but Lendert swept her aside.
“Shame upon you, girl!” The words came from Madam De Vries, who, shaking with anger, saw the two standing as one before her. “Lendert, what does this mean? Girl, go to your room!”