“I can’t go back in there—I can’t!” sobbed Lida. “Right now I want to hide away.”
With gentle understanding the priest escorted her to the door of the sachem’s cottage. “I will pray for you, that the morning may bring good courage again. I will talk with you then—in the morning.”
She stammered broken words of gratitude and escaped to the covert of the little room.
Father Leroque went back to the wedding party and called the governor out into the night. For a long time the two conferred, walking to and fro under the big pines.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SUNRISE was crystal clear, with frosty crispness, for April in the northern latitudes flirts long with Winter on his way to everlasting snows. Lida saw the sun come quivering over the big trees and sat by her window, continuing the doleful ponderings which had made the night black and dismal. There was no cheer for her in the morning radiance; as she faced what was ahead of her, new fear grew in her; faith in herself was waning after the defection of Latisan’s men. Would Echford Flagg’s own crew stand by a stricken master or hearken to the appeal of Flagg’s kin?
The rivermen guests had departed; there were no bateaus on the shore; faint smoke came wreathing from the black embers of the feast fire.
Early as it was, there was the stir of life in the other rooms of the cottage, and she ventured forth timidly into the presence of the governor’s family. The little mirror in her room had revealed to her the pallor of her face and the mournful anxiety in her eyes.
There was no talk at breakfast; the family copied the manner of the governor, who had greeted Lida with a single word, gestured her to her chair, and now ate in silence. All his festal trappings had been laid aside; he was a grave, wrinkled man in the ordinary attire of a woodsman. In her new humility Lida wondered how she would summon courage to ask for canoemen to take her north. The impulse to keep on toward the drive was no longer so keen and courageous and absorbing, she realized. She had dreamed vividly when she stood in the presence of Echford Flagg; but she had begun to face practicality, and the difficulties frightened her.