"I wasn't sorry to see you come. Scevola too, I believe. He heard that patriots were being hunted down, here and there, and he was growing quieter every day. You roused the child wonderfully."
"And did that please Scevola too?"
"Before you came she never spoke to anybody unless first spoken to. She didn't seem to care where she was. At the same time," added Catherine after a pause, "she didn't care what happened to her either. Oh, I have had some heavy hours thinking it all over, in the daytime doing my work, and at night while I lay awake, listening to her breathing. And I growing older all the time, and, who knows, with my last hour ready to strike. I often thought that when I felt it coming I would speak to you as I am speaking to you now."
"Oh, you did think," said Peyrol in an undertone. "Because of my grey hairs, I suppose."
"Yes. And because you came from beyond the seas," Catherine said with unbending mien and in an unflinching voice. "Don't you know that the first time Arlette saw you she spoke to you and that it was the first time I heard her speak of her own accord since she had been brought back by that man, and I had to wash her from head to foot before I put her into her mother's bed."
"The first time," repeated Peyrol.
"It was like a miracle happening," said Catherine, "and it was you that had done it."
"Then it must be that some Indian witch has given me the power," muttered Peyrol, so low that Catherine could not hear the words. But she did not seem to care, and presently went on again:
"And the child took to you wonderfully. Some sentiment was aroused in her at last."
"Yes," assented Peyrol grimly. "She did take to me. She learned to talk to – the old man."