“The wench has slept often enough in the woods,” sneered Madam. “You do not need to spare her; she is not used to a delicate life, we know that.”
“The more that she should be spared further privation,” spoke up the spunky little Trynje. “If you will get my horse and your own, Lendert Verplanck, we can all travel together, and can reach home in an hour.”
“No, no, Trynje, dear little Trynje,” whispered Alaine. “I will not take you away; it is not safe going at night through the woods.”
“As safe for me as for you, and perhaps safer than a settlement. Then, I wish to go. I want my mother.”
Tears came to Alaine’s eyes, and she bent over and kissed the girl’s soft cheek. This loyalty of Trynje’s touched her deeply.
It was not long before the little party was ready to start, Alaine and Jeanne mounted on Trynje’s horse, and Trynje behind Lendert upon his own steed. They left a silent house, from the windows of which not a light gleamed, but within whose walls sat a disappointed, obdurate woman with rage and self-pity gnawing at her heart.
The travellers rode along quietly enough through the woods. The leaves were yet too sparsely green to shut out the light of the sky, and the bridle-path was easily followed. Lendert’s watchful eyes kept a sharp lookout right and left, and his hand upon his gun was ready. Neither he nor Trynje were great talkers, and they said little. Alaine, on the contrary, kept up a low-voiced conversation with Jeanne. Neither Madam’s sharp words nor the painfulness of the entire situation could take the joy from Alaine’s heart. Above all else arose the one thought: Lendert loved her; he had not forgotten her. Once or twice she lifted her face to the twinkling stars whose beams sifted down between the tender twigs and the little new leaves, and she repeated softly one of the dear old psalms, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” It had been a long time since she had heard any one sing them, but soon, soon she would be at home and free. There was so much she desired to ask Lendert, so much, for he had seen those dear ones not long ago, and she busied herself with this or that surmise as she chattered to Jeanne, and at last she sobered down into pensive recollections of her old life. What of all her resolves? What of the promise she had made to herself that she would forget Lendert and remember Pierre? These had vanished utterly at sight of him to whom her heart was given.
So presently she spoke very gravely. “Dear Jeanne, in those old days in France I used to go to Father Bisset with all my puzzling questions, and he always set me right. Now here am I in a sorry uncertainty. Listen, Jeanne, and tell me what I should do. I have not told you all this, because I thought I ought to try to overcome my love and think only of Pierre and his great sacrifice for my sake. Yet, here is another who loves me so well that he forsakes all else for me, and him I love. I have tried not to. I have sought to let my thoughts dwell on Pierre. And then, at home, Michelle and Papa Louis would have me marry Gerard, yet I think when my father returns they will see that it is he who should order my goings. What must I do, dear Jeanne? You saw that my heart outran my resolve, and I have again confessed my love for Lendert. Am I not a deceitful wicked thing? I am miserable when I think of it.”
“What have you promised Pierre?”
“I promised him nothing, for he would not allow it; and furthermore he told me that I must not be bound, and if in a year he or my father had not returned, that I must be free to do what seemed best. Before then I told him I would marry him or whomsoever should be my father’s choice.”