Alaine cast a frightened glance at the drooping figure behind her. “Monsieur Verplanck,” she cried, in dread, “if I but dared to turn my back, but yonder wretch has no conscience, and he would finish the work he has begun. I must keep my face toward him to watch him, but I will try to stanch your wound.” She took the kerchief from her neck, and without exposing him to the possible attack from François, managed to twist a tourniquet above the place which bled the most freely, after which she arose to her feet, and stood again defiant, determined. The eyes of her enemy were bent fixedly upon her. She closed her own and began to sing one of the familiar psalms.
“Aux paroles que je veux dire,
Plaise toi l’oreille prester:
Et à cognoistre t’arrester,
Pourquoi, mon cœur, pense et soupire,
Souverain Sire,”
rang out the plaintive voice in the still forest. “Sovereign Sire” came the echo. Was it an echo? Alaine’s dark eyes grew more intense as she listened. Faintly upon the air came the second stanza of the psalm,—
“Enten à la voix très ardente,
De ma clameur, mon Dieu, mon Roy,
Veu que tant seulement à toi