“You will give mortal offence if you remove her,” he said; “and surely you have enemies enough already. It is quite true what Madame says: Mademoiselle Mercèdes lives a life utterly apart from hers. She is never seen in the salons of the Intendance, and only appears when it is a quiet home party. You can judge for yourself.”
And the General did so. His happiest moments during his short stay in Quebec were spent in Mercèdes’ rooms, the windows of which looked upon the convent gardens, where the silent nuns were pacing up and down the paths, turning their backs, with their heavy sable coiffures sweeping their black robes, and anon their still, mask-like faces, set in that stiff framework of white linen, towards these windows; and he felt almost relieved to keep his Mercèdes a little longer a free agent; she looked so happy and so well, as she stood beside him in the little greenery which Madame Péan had created for her of house plants, tall geraniums, an over-arching ivy, and delicate roses.
“You are content to remain here, Mercèdes?” he asked.
“Only too content,” she answered. “I try always to remember it is but for a time, and because she wants me; and I look across the road and know that my true home is there.”
“And you have no regrets for the world you will leave behind, Mercèdes?” he asked.
She turned her head slightly on one side, so that the General could not see the colour which mantled her face.
“I think not,” she answered quietly. “Why should I?”
And so, when the General left her for the winter campaign, it was an understood thing that for the present at least she was to remain with Madame Péan. Events followed so rapidly—defeats, victories, hair-breadth escapes—that, feeling she was in safe keeping, the General had no time to be even anxious about Mercèdes; and so she led a strange though by no means an unhappy life in that upper story. Both her and Marthe’s time was spent working and fashioning clothes for the poor; for, alas! only too quickly the poverty and distress grew to be severe. Bread rose to an exorbitant price; meat there was none save horseflesh. At least, so Mercèdes saw and heard in her visits among the poor; but at Madame Péan’s table there was every luxury both in and out of season. She remarked upon this more than once, and was told she must not be too credulous, the poor were so improvident! At Montreal everything was at famine price, and the public indignation was so great against the government that the populace mobbed the Governor, the troops joining in the mutiny, and it was with difficulty that Chevalier Levis, by his authority and tact, succeeded in quelling the rebellion.
Occasionally, at rare intervals, Mercèdes and Charles Langlade met. Often months elapsed between these interviews; then suddenly at the corner of a street, or maybe as she rose from her knees after service in the cathedral, Mercèdes would become aware of the Canadian hunter’s presence. He would salute her, enquire after her well-being, and walk with her and Marthe part of the homeward way; but at the door they parted.
One day, as Charles Langlade was still standing cap in hand looking after Mercèdes’ retreating figure, Madame Péan’s coach drove up. A light came into her eyes, and she hastened to descend. “At last,” she murmured, and going quickly up to the young officer, she said,—