“Mon pere,” said Prosper, slowly, “you shall tell him just this. I, Prosper Leclere, ask Raoul Vaillantcoeur that he will forgive me for not fighting with him on the ground when he demanded it.”
Yes, the message was given in precisely those words. Marie Antoinette stood within the door, Bergeron and Girard at the foot of the bed, and the cure spoke very clearly and firmly. Vaillantcoeur rolled on his pillow and turned his face away. Then he sat up in bed, grunting a little with the pain in his shoulder, which was badly set. His black eyes snapped like the eyes of a wolverine in a corner.
“Forgive?” he said, “no, never. He is a coward. I will never forgive!”
A little later in the afternoon, when the rose of sunset lay on the snowy hills, some one knocked at the door of Leclere’s house.
“ENTREZ!” he cried. “Who is there? I see not very well by this light. Who is it?”
“It is me,” said ‘Toinette, her cheeks rosier than the snow outside, “nobody but me. I have come to ask you to tell me the rest about that new carriage—do you remember?”
III
The voice in the canoe behind me ceased. The rain let up. The SLISH, SLISH of the paddle stopped. The canoe swung sideways to the breeze. I heard the RAP, RAP, RAP of a pipe on the gunwale, and the quick scratch of a match on the under side of the thwart.
“What are you doing, Ferdinand?”