“On my return I shall ask my father’s consent to make Lydia my wife. Should success attend our arms it will be a propitious moment to win a hearing, and I want you to use your influence, which is great, to plead my cause. My father is ambitious; greatly as he is attached to me, I am by no means certain that his sanction will be easily gained. From the first moment that my eyes rested upon the English captive I have loved her. All through the winter before I met her I had passed through toil and danger and carnage, and then that summer day her tender presence dawned upon me like some star of peace and repose. You, too, have been won by her sweetness. It was together we rescued her, remember, Diane. I never loved you so dearly as when I watched your tender care of the helpless stranger cast upon your mercy. She has the gift of winning all hearts. For my sake I would ask you to protect and care for my treasure.”
Du Chesne was so completely engrossed by his own thoughts and feelings that he paid but slight attention to his companion. Diane’s rich color had given place to a strange excited pallor. She looked at him with the wild, hunted eyes of some desperate animal at bay. The world was suddenly upheaving beneath her feet, and her heart stood still as the keenness and sharpness of the shock crushed the spirit within her.
Oh, Heaven! not later than yesterday she had been as a queen, graciously dispensing her favors, smiling tolerantly at Lydia’s petty vanities and weaknesses—Lydia, who had come into her life as a stranger, stirring it to its very foundations, robbing it of peace and happiness, leaving her in return the blank of a great desolation—Lydia, whom she had protected and cherished, who owed all to her generosity. Now a flash of lightning had come out of the apparently cloudless sky, smiting her from her pedestal, precipitating her into this awful void in which every wretchedness was conceivable. Others had not been as blind as herself. She remembered her aunt’s sarcasm, the hints Nanon had given her, the ill-will to the English girl Cecile de St. Rochs had so often openly expressed. The glare of illumination was intolerable, bringing with it a galling, insupportable mortification. As these bitter truths flashed upon her, Diane clenched her hands, flushing into a sudden rage of bitter humiliation.
“Diane, you are surely not surprised? I thought that you, who are so quick, would have divined my feeling from the first. I fancied that your kindness to Lydia was inspired by friendship for me, as well as delight in her charms.”
The trustful glance of the young man’s frank, eager eyes melted the fire of pain and rage and jealousy. A piteous little smile crossed her lips, as though she were amused at, yet very sorry for, that proud, high-handed girl who had fancied herself supreme, and who was none other than her old self. The vehement, hot-blooded creature was overwhelmed by a black pall of shame and self-disgust. What did it matter if the whole world crumbled away, and that her pride and vanity vanished with it? If du Chesne sought comfort it must be her place, crowned by the glory and agony of self-sacrifice, to supply it. No one could supplant the companion of his childhood in that office. Turning her resolute face to the future, without wasting a single thought upon her own strength or need, she battled against the rush of strong feeling with a fierce, determined energy.
Diane could scarcely stand, but she confronted the young Canadian with a brave smile, a dumb denial of her anguish, and even succeeded in assuming an air of gaiety.
“You did take me by surprise. I had no thought of this. But I am grateful for your confidence, and shall try to prove myself worthy. And then, my cousin, when you return——”
“Aye, return, who can tell how that will be.”
He paled before a supposition to which he dreaded to give form even in his thoughts. Together with a stern sense of his own immediate duty, which was to put through the work in hand steadily and cheerfully, without any careful hesitation or speculation concerning the ultimate ethics of the situation, there existed in Le Ber’s youngest son much tenderness of heart towards the weak and unfortunate, and delicate consideration for friends and kindred, as well as ardent devotion to the chosen one of his heart. Existence was full of hope and generous ambition; he was surrounded by kindly, faithful faces and honest love. In the strength of his early manhood he was conscious of stirring hopes and untold possibilities, above which shone the thought of his girl-love with her innocent grace and guilelessness. All this was deepened by that touch of uncertainty that gives exquisite intensity to affection, and the quickened interest of tragic possibilities. These fancies were followed by wiser and sadder thoughts, and immediate practical considerations. Just as the color grew richer and the pace faster, and life spread before him a full completeness he had never even imagined, was it, he asked himself, to be stained forever by the cruelty of circumstances? A great wave of sadness, a swift dread of advancing pain and disaster, the reaction from his natural buoyancy of temperament, rushed over du Chesne’s spirit.
“Somehow, Diane, when I try to picture my return, I cannot imagine how it will be. Many times before have I started on such expeditions without a thought; this time it is entirely different. I cannot help remembering—it was less than a year ago—St. Helène’s fate. Then De Clermont, Bienville, De Bellefonds, De la Motte, were close friends and trusty comrades, with whom I fought and camped and hunted; where are they? Gallant gentlemen, they have laid down their lives, gaily and carelessly, forcing and country. Mort dieu! what will you? A day sooner or later makes but little difference. Shall I make a nightmare of death?”