Pierre had not been under her roof a week when she began to reproach him for his melancholy. “Thy grave and sombre face needs a different medicine to alter its expression from that I have to offer,” she said one day. “M. Hervet, there, for all he has a missing daughter somewhere in the world, does not look so melancholy. Who is it you have left behind?” She gave a coquettish glance at the unresponsive Pierre, who shook his head.
“No kin of mine waits for me anywhere, for all perished under the hand of persecution in France.”
Madame Felice Valleau tapped her foot reflectively. “And that is why you do not approve of me, I suppose. I am not Protestant.”
“I never said, madame, that I did not approve of you. Who am I that I should abuse your bounty by vilifying you? Yet, I would you were Protestant.”
“And suppose I were, then would I see you smile?”
“Without doubt I should smile that Providence had brought me into such a favorable haven of refuge.”
“Then turn your head this way. I am Protestant and M. Hervet knows it. It was not my husband’s belief, but he did not cross me in it, and he was always kind to those of my faith. It was his way to say that each man was accountable to his own conscience for his faith, and he had no right to persecute others for thinking the same. He took M. Hervet into his employ, knowing him to be a Huguenot, but seeing him a gentleman and a good man of business. He finally made him his secretary, in which office in this house he still continues, though he is still an engagé, and it will be some time before he can have his freedom. I think he will likely wish to remain here if he can realize something from the estates he left in France. There is a secret about that too, which I will tell you some day. There are not bad opportunities in this place for one who has M. Hervet’s ability, and I think he will do well to remain. But now let us return to our former subject. I see no reason for your melancholy, for I assure you that I shall treat you well.”
“I do not doubt it, madame, and as for my grave manner, one who has suffered much cannot at once assume the gayety of those always free from care.”
The tears came to the eyes of Madame Valleau. “It shall be my dearest privilege to drive that gloom away from one who has borne so much for the sake of my religion. Tell me again of that wild escape of yours. And why did you return when once you had freed yourself? I can never wring from you why you did that. Can you not tell me?” She looked at him with melting dark eyes and laid her soft warm hand upon his arm. “Tell me,” she said in a beseeching voice.
Pierre hesitated. He felt the woman’s witchery, and told himself that there was not any reason why he should not confess that his was a mission of love, a sacrifice because of his devotion to Alaine. Yet he hesitated. After a pause, in which the silken garments of the pretty widow swept his feet and the entreaty in her eyes deepened, he said, slowly, “I returned that I might seek and liberate some one who, like myself, had been sent into slavery.”