"You are not and will not be my enemy," exclaimed M. Belmont, clasping the extended hand of Hardinge in both of his, and then embracing him on the cheek. "I owe you a full apology. My suspicions were cruelly unjust, but you have dispelled them. My treatment of you this evening was outrageous, and I beg you to pardon me. Your explanations are thoroughly satisfactory. You did your duty as a soldier in delivering those letters to the Lieutenant-Governor, and even if you had known to whom they were addressed, your obligation would have been no less."
"I did not need to be told my duty," said Hardinge with just a shade of haughtiness, which he immediately qualified by adding, "but I am flattered to know that I have the approval of one who has always appeared to me a model of honor."
"You have my unqualified approval, Lieutenant. Although you were the indirect instrument of the crisis through which I am passing, I am satisfied that you are clear of the imputation of traitor and spy to me which I had charged upon you in my indignation and despair. We are on the eve of important events. Within a few days war with all its anxieties and horrors will be upon us. You have high duties to perform both as a citizen and a soldier. Perform them with all the energy of your nature. It is your sacred duty. I will watch your course with the deepest interest. Your successes will be a source of personal pleasure to me, and I sincerely trust that no harm will befall you."
Roderick was quite overcome by this cordial speech, which was to him more than a reparation for all he had endured during the interview. He rejoiced, too, at his own perspicacity in having so accurately divined the real cause of M. Belmont's misunderstanding. It was lamentable, indeed, that Arnold's letters which he had delivered to the Lieutenant-Governor should have implicated M. Belmont—if they did implicate him, a fact of which he had yet no proof, and which he still refused to credit—but they had been the means of awakening the authorities to a sense of the peril with which Quebec was threatened, and that was some compensation for what he had suffered. But there was, however, another compensation for which he longed, notwithstanding that the hour was considerably advanced and he had to return to his quarters. Approaching closer to M. Belmont, with a pleasantly malicious smile on his lips, he said:
"I have to thank you, sir, for the kind words which you have spoken. I regard them in the light of the reparation which I knew you would not withhold so soon as you became acquainted with the facts, but you will excuse me for saying that there is just one little thing wanting to make the reparation complete."
M. Belmont looked up in some surprise, but when he saw the expression on Roderick's face, he comprehended the allusion at once, and replied with genuine French good-humor and vivacity:
"Oh, of course, there is a woman in the case. You want to be rehabilitated in the eyes of Pauline as well. It is only just, and it shall be done. I told her all my suspicions against you, and repeated all my charges to her. And, by the way, that reminds me that I never told anybody else about the matter. How, then, pray, did it come to your ears? You must have known of it before you came here to-night."
"I did, sir, and came expressly on that account."
"Who in the world could have told you?"
Hardinge broke out into a hearty laugh. The laugh was re-echoed by a silvery voice in the passage.