She made as if to go to the door, but he stepped before her.
"Madame," he said, "you cannot enter."
Just then the moon shot from behind a cloud, and all their faces could be seen. There was a flame in Jessica's eyes which Perrot could not stand, and he turned away. She was too much the woman to plead weakly.
"Tell me," she said, "whose house this is." "Madame, it is Monsieur
Iberville's."
She could not check a gasp, but both the priest and the woodsman saw how intrepid was the struggle in her, and they both pitied.
"Now I understand! Oh, now I understand!" she cried. "A plot was laid. He was let escape that he might be cornered here—one single man against a whole country. Oh, cowards, cowards!"
"Pardon me, madame," said Perrot, bristling up, "not cowards. Your husband has a chance for his life. You know Monsieur Iberville—he is a man all honour. More than once he might have had your husband's life, but he gave it to him."
Her foot tapped the ground impatiently, her hands clasped before her. "Go on, oh, go on!" she said. "What is it? why is he here? Have you no pity, no heart?" She turned towards the priest. "You are a man of God. You said once that you would help me make peace between my husband and Monsieur Iberville, but you join here with his enemies."
"Madame, believe me, you are wrong. I have done all I could: I have brought you here."
"Yes, yes; forgive me," she replied. She turned to Perrot again. "It is with you, then. You helped to save my life once—what right have you to destroy it now? You and Monsieur Iberville gave me the world when it were easy to have lost it; now when the world is everything to me because my husband lives in it, you would take his life and break mine."