“And Étienne?”
“Will submit to the fate which has given you to me rather than to him. I will say, My good friend, I tried to induce mademoiselle to consider you, but since you commissioned me instead of going yourself, you see the result. Is it not so easy, so beautiful, this plan of mine?”
“But my father, you forget as a Huguenot he cannot return to France. How, then, shall I be benefited after all?”
“We can then do this: we can take up a residence in these colonies. I do not even say that I will not in time embrace your religion.”
Alaine’s heart was beating fast; she had learned one supreme fact: her father was in Guadaloupa. Inside the house the others were playing cards with many excited exclamations and much laughter; the clink of mugs of wine, the occasional thump of a hand as it laid a pile of jingling coin upon the table, the stir of a chair upon the bare floor, these sounds broke the stillness. Outside the insects kept up a monotonous jarring noise; the damps of a September night began to chill the air. Alaine shivered slightly and leaned back again against the post of the porch. Her father’s life or hers, for one does not have to die to lay down a life for a friend. At last she drew a long breath. “You would take me away alone?” she asked.
“Marie, the half-breed, shall attend you.”
“And your plan is——”
He leaned eagerly forward; she could feel his warm breath against her cheek; where the light of the candles fell on his face she could see the intenseness of his eyes. Her hands folded themselves in a rigid clasp as she listened to what he said in his low, rapid voice: “To-morrow morning early, very early, by break of day, I will have some one unlock your door, the one toward the rear of the house. Leave your room, follow the entry to the back of the house; at the farthest window you will see a ladder; climb down and follow the path to the edge of the wood; I will be there to meet you. We will go to the water’s brink and find the boat left there last night; we have but to pursue our way a little farther and then strike inland, cross the northern colonies to Canada, and all is well.”
“But why this great secrecy? These, your friends here, do they not agree with your way of settling this?”
“One cannot tell; they are Frenchmen, but they are also Jesuits; they would not agree to the escape of your father; they might discover our intention with regard to him.” He watched her narrowly to see the effect of his words.